The Art of Tantra

i

r

J*'«

The Art of Tantra

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'.•/^' »*'.

The Art of Tantra Philip

176

Rawson

illustrations,

25

in

colour

T New York

Graphic Society

Ltd,

Greenwich, Connecticut

acknowledge the assistance of the Arts Council, and wish to point work was only made possible by the exhibition they supported in the Hay ward Gallery in the autumn of 1971. Thanks are also due to Nik Douglas for the work he has done for the identification of a large number of the objects; to Jeff Teasdale for his skill and long patience; to Jean Claude Ciancimino for his great kindness and readiness to help at all stages in the project; and to Ann Stevens of Thames and Hudson for the sustained care and thought she has devoted to the I

gratefully

out that

this

planning of

this

book.

International Standard International Standard

n

Book Number 0-82 12-05 18-8 Book Number 0-8212-0523-4

Library of Congress Catalog Card First

by

(Paper)

Number 72-93940

published in Great Britain by

Thames and Hudson First

(Cloth)

Ltd,

London

published in the United States of America

New York

Graphic Society Ltd, Greenwich, Connecticut

© 1973 Thames and Hudson Ltd, London All rights reserved.

No

part of this publication

may

be reproduced

or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission

Printed in Great Britain

in writing

from the

publisher.

c

d

Contents

Introduction

Fundamental

attitudes

2

Historical characteristics

15

3

Sex and logic

30

4

Basic ceremonial and images

47

5

Mantra and yantra

69

6

Sexual transformation

77

7

Krisna and aesthetics

99

8

Graveyards and horror

112

9

Cosmograms

138

The

154

10

subtle

body

II

Doubling and development

i8i

12

The One

193

Appendix Kamakalavilasa :

translated

198

Notes on the Text

204

Glossary

204

Bibliography

209

Location of objects

211

Index

212

ntroduction

The

art

of Tantra has only

come

to

Hght during the

exhibitions have been held in London, Paris,

last

ten years; small

Rome, San Francisco,

New York,

Montreal and elsewhere. In 1971 the largest exhibition was held in London, under the auspices of the Arts Council of Great Britain. But so sudden was its discovery that even people professionally concerned with India had

nothing about

it.

known

Western museums contain many examples as yet unrecoghow to cope with it; it was so different

nized. Art-critics have been at a loss

from anything they had seen before, even of Indian art. And the galleries which have recently put on shows have had difficulty in giving coherent and intelligible explanations. But to artists, art-students and younger people in general it has come as a revelation. All over the world it has caught their imagination; and even though most of them had not known much, if anything, about Tantra, the qualities of the art offered them something positive and special. Tantra itself has been known to a handful of interested people in the West for about seventy years, mainly through Sanskrit texts and English translations. A few pieces of visual art were published here and there as oddities, or as accessories to the study of Indian religion. No-one had recognized in them an art worthy of serious attention though a few had been bought as curiosities. We owe their discovery very largely to one man, Ajit Mookerjee, from whom a knowledge of the art has been emanating since about 1955. He comes from Bengal, one of the great strongholds of Tantra from at least ad 600, probably earlier. He is the author and designer of the first, most important books on Tantrik art, which are based on his private collection. In fact, what now passes current as Tantra art is in one sense the product of Ajit's intelligence working through the channels of modern publication. Tantra art may seem to have no clear limits; one cannot easily say such and such is Tantrik, and such and such is not. But this does not mean that the unity is

unreal. In practice Tantra has

together into able,

give

a

adopted and adapted imagery from different

and weaving the strands of tradition complex pattern of symbolism. Ajit is the man who has been

sources, remodelling

its

significance

through the resources of the modern world, to recognize the pattern and it

an identity.

He is by profession a Museum Curator

:

he

is

thus concerned

every day with collecting, rationalizing, conserving and explaining.

He

has

The Art

of

Tantra

long had oppc^rtunitics for study and purchase which no layman would have

would not have been enough. He has, too, an modern art, and has written about it. Furthermore, his museum is the National Crafts Museum, which has given him a special interest in what are usually called Folk arts - nowadays an unfortunate title: we should perhaps call them 'Root arts'. For hidia still (but only just!) preserves live art whose function and symbolism are as old as humanity Ajit has thus had. But by themselves these interest in

and an eye

been aware for

for

many

years of the

cance between prmiitivc and

common

modern

arts.

substratum of archetypal

He

peoples producing age-old images, and recognized that they tions not unlike those

towards which modern

through the labyrinths of modern conceptual print

n.dfif,4^>.T^

many

times over.

signifi-

has seen living Indian tribal

artists are

clutter.

He

embody

intui-

groping their way has said as

much

in

Fundamental attitudes

1

Tantra

is

a special

manifestation of Indian feeling, art and religion.

be understood, in the

last resort,

by people who

It

are prepared to undertake

inner meditative action. There can be no quick and easy defmitions.

been

but they either turn out to be so broad and general

tried;

expressed in Indian words that they scarcely

may really

mean

They have if

they are

anything to the Westerner,

or so narrow that they are only true for a part of the enormous and diffuse

There

reality.

are

many

variations of practice and belief.

one thread which can guide us through the labyrinth tions of Tantra can be strung

of ecstasy, focused on

a

on

it.

This thread

is

;

all

However, there

is

the different manifesta-

the idea that Tantra

is

a cult

vision of cosmic sexuality. Life-styles, ritual, magic,

myth, philosophy and a complex of signs and emotive symbols converge upon that vision.

The basic

Tantra has

which

texts in

a particular

these are

conveyed

wisdom of its own. This

are also called Tantras.

sets it

from

apart

all

other

and psychological systems, especially those traditional to the orthodox Brahmins. The other systems agree in asserting that our real world is a religious

meaningless ence of

life

illusion, that the

and the world

mental play of forms which utterly

is

experiences which ordinarily

we

on

grip for

we may

a

consuming

Brahmin

systems,

into an

all

Our

mind

nature

the ultimate

stilled

may

those

art

can produce,

whose

allow our whole attention to be

as to

when we manage

attention, with our entire

achieve Release.

is

all

We must learn to reject totally any fondness

abstract vision of the

'The undivided whole', which

our experi-

personal God, are merely traps,

worldly experience of any kind, so

flooded with

the

joy nature, music and

feel for a

us has to be prized loose.

call

cherish most, such as love for our lovers and

children, food, the intense emotional

even the adoration

we

without value. They show that

Brahman,

to stay

permanently

and absorbed

cease to be

i.e.

'The Truth',

Ground of Being. According

human,

in this state

in the Ultimate,

so that

we

to

of

we may

are converted

embracing Consciousness which is at once Being and Bliss. Obviously

kind of heroism to detach oneself utterly from experience in the world, and it takes a long, long time - many successive lives according to

it

needs

a special

Indian thinking. But this has been the constant obsession of Indian orthodoxies.

To

achieve such insight one

condition.

may

Hundreds of Indian

dwell on the urgent misery of the

human

religious texts (notably Buddhist) contain

The Art

of

Tantra

somewhere

in

'Everything

is

few paragraphs the phrase 'Sarvam Dukham' -

their first

To help one

misery'.

meditating, one

may

along the

way of detachment when one

is

pick out for special attention the agonies, despair and

One may also focus one's mind own body and the bodies of others,

crimes of which one knows: there are plenty.

on the

'disgusting' aspects of one's

thinking of them

One

as

mere

can then discover

bodies, to

transient bags of

phlegm,

how easy it is to say 'No

!'

deny the claims of all apparent but vanishing

of suffering will thus fade into insignificant dreams.

most beautiful lover a desiring idle

mind.

imagining,

its

changeless light.

and vigorous

will dissolve into a

When all this is motions

By

may

temporary

possessions.

By

The horrors

same token the

the

illusion, the airy fantasy

of

from

its

quite clearly seen one's libido

be stopped, and one can

oppressing the body and the

discipline,

and putrefying offal. world enjoyed by such

shit

to the

fix

mind with

is

it

freed

on the

eternal,

fasting, asceticism

one can obliterate from one's consciousness every

last

shred of the interest that knots the self to any piece, part, fragment, image,

movement

or

memory

of the world of illusion; one's

swallowed into the Brahman

like a

own mind may

thus be

drop of water into the surface of

a lake.

Then even though other people may see the body walking, there will be no man in it. It will be a husk, an empty pupa-shell when the butterfly has gone. It

will continue to exist

from

immemorial

its

merely so

as to finish

up the

last

remnants of impulse

past.

Tantra does not dispute the fundamental truth of this position. But

methods used

that the

are absurd.

declares that there

It

is

no need

it

believes

for such a

desperate upstream struggle to reach the shore, that such an ideal of Hfe

produces

a dreadful

world

for those as yet unreleased. In fact distinguished

nineteenth-century Tantrikas stated emphatically that they believed the miseries of their poor India to be caused

many of

by the world-hatred which

Brahmin philosophies had instilled into the majorit)' of the populaone nowadays can doubt that they were right. In addition, as Dr S. S.

traditional tion.

No

Barlingay has pointed out, there

involved first

In

in

is

a logical

of all of that which

is

and

its

relation to

world, Tantra says an emphatic,

instead of suppressing pleasure, vision

and used. There

are, in fact,

and

fallacy

to take account

official

Brahmin

tradition

if qualified, 'Yes!' It asserts that,

ecstasy, they should be cultivated

plenty of references to this even in the most sacred

orthodox Upanisads. Because sensation and emotion

human

fails

man.

complete contrast to the strenuous 'No!' that

said to the

'

and phenomenological

any assertion of the nature of Being which

arc the

most powerful

motive forces, they should not be crushed out, but harnessed to the

ultimate goal. Properly channelled they can provide an unparalleled source of

energy, bringing benefits to society the individual.

To

as

well as continually increasing ecstasy for

help in this the physical

body needs

to be carefully culti-

vated. Tantrikas suspect the officially-approved 'No-sayers',

10

who

hate and

Fundamental attitudes

deny the world, should

now

worst of a hidden and dangerous self-indulgence which

at

call sadistic, at best

deals in love,

and love needs

of neglecting

objects.

One

their fellow-creatures.

we

Tantra

cannot love nothing. Love means

care; and care carried to the limit is probably the ultimate social virtue. At the same time, different forms of Tantra cultivated elaborate frameworks of qualification and ritual procedure, to make quite sure that its followers did not fall into complacent ways of self-indulgence. It is fatally easy - millions do it !

to seek pleasure,

dead and

sterile

and make nothing of them, leaving them lying as experiences in one's own past. Writers on Tantra have pointed even

ecstasy,

out, though, that in the total oneness occasionally experienced in

everyday

love the goal can be glimpsed. Tantra, however, distinguishes very sharply

indeed between the beast-like

man in bondage to appetites, who seeks pleasure ecstasies it may offer, and the committed

only for the sake of experiencing the Tantrika

who

and emotions

treats his senses

kind of account.

It

be turned to a special

as assets to

never denies that our fragmented experience of the world

intrinsically valueless.

But

does accept that

it

life

is

contains positive experiences

which can be put to use. They may be made into a ladder of ascent, or built into something like a linear-accelerator to propel a person into ecstatic release, drawing behind him a wake of love and benefit. Hindu Tantra proclaims everything, the crimes and miseries as well as the joys, to be the active play of a female creative principle, the Goddess of many forms, sexually penetrated by an invisible, indescribable, seminal male. In ultimate fact He has generated Her for his own enjoyment. And the play, because

it is

analogous to the activity of sexual intercourse,

The Tantrika must learn

Her.

to identify himself with that

play and to recognize that what ,

cosmic pleasure-in-

may seem to others to be misery is an inevitable

and necessary part of its creative web, whereas the pleasure of the cosmic dehght. This point Kamakalavilasa love'

;

(p. 198), for

pleasurable to

is

is

made even

example, means

is

in the titles

'erotic

joy

a true reflection

of Tantrik

Saktisarhgama Tantra means 'the Tantra about Sakti intercourse'.

exertions of their

couphng

the

two

By the

divinities generate around themselves, in

various kinds of patterned halo in stages figures, called devatas,

texts:

movements of

in the

among whom

less

their

and

less subtle,

energy

is

more particularized The patterns are

shared.

described in the mandala designs and yantras with which the texts and art are

very

much

concerned. Buddhist Tantra in practice shares with

and valuation of figurative symbols, even though

it

Hindu

may seem

2,

65

the use

to differ over

their ultimate significance.

The

devatas are

colours to

show

all

human

in shape,

their qualities,

female or male, and have different

perhaps

many arms

functions, heads, expressions, garments, gestures

to

show

and postures

all

their special

with

specific

meanings. Personalization in the bodily shape of beautiful people has important implications of its own. At the superficial level

it

engages the

human

98

libido in

11

The

Art of Tantra

sensuous and erotically attractive imagery. But

at a

deeper level

it

reflects a

principle which has ramifications throughout the whole of hidian thought,

including medicine and astronomy. According to this principle Tantra equates

135

the

human body with

the cosmos.

The two are,

so to speak, the

system seen from different points of view, and each

is

same functional

inconceivable without

the other. T and 'That over there' are functions of each other. The cosmos which man's mind knows is a structure of the energy-currents in his bodily system. Only by the activity of man's mind does a cosmos come into any kind of meaningful existence. MIND (cosmic) and mind (human) are not essentially different; nor are BODY (cosmic) and body (human). The trick is to knit together the two aspects, by getting rid of obstacles and limitations. So the devata-bodies to which Tantra constantly refers are invitations to each human

being to identify himself with them,

lower then

first at

at

higher

levels.

Tantra has mapped the mechanism of currents of energy through which the 92

distributed at once through man's

creative impulse

is

The

phenomena which

universe of

body and

the world's.

results has, therefore, for the

Tantrika

a

kind ot subtle four-dimensional skeleton of channels, the knots and crossings of

which

by

are occupied

devata-figures.

The Tantra

texts

and

art

maps

contain

of the system, together with detailed instructions for working the mechanism.

The Tantrika does this by sadhana, i.e. psychosomatic effort,' assimilating his own body to higher and higher levels of cosmic body-pattern. In the end he may become identical with the original double-sexed deity, which is involved, without begiuning or end, in blissful intercourse with itself. The incentive to his continual effort

is

an occasional vision, as

of a raging furnace through

a

crack in

all-embracing love, sexual, maternal,

Sadhana meditative

its

of the cosmic

wall,

filial,

social

fundamentally, of repeated

consists,

activities,

some of which

has to lead a controlled

life.

one were to glimpse the

if

bliss

and destructive,

rituals

which all at

fire

is

an

once.

and carefully designed

will be described later on.

The Tantrika

For he knows that only wholehearted and con-

tinuous repetition ofreal acts, both physical and mental, can change his body and consciousness.

Mere reading and thinking

is

no good

at all.

Tantra

is

not

a

way of living and acting. Indians have anyway enjoyed ancient times. To repeat prescribed ceremonies gives them

belief or faith, but a ritual since

very

great satisfaction, and a powerful assurance of their identity in their universe.

Regular

ritual

is

not for them the weary chore

it

can so easily become for the

city-bred Westerner. Tantra, like most other Indian cults, focuses

all

its

on prescribed schemes of behaviour and imagery. Its texts are full of imperatives, which again some Westerners may find distasteful. 'The Sadhaka must do so and so then he must do so and so', or 'Before doing this he must do

interest

;

this, this

and

this.'

He

has to stick to rigid laws and observances, avoiding

certain things like the plague. In practice Tantra has never in valuing

12

shown any

interest

and contemplating the continuously different forms produced by

Fundamental attitudes

Although there could be plenty of room

the creative play.

for

them

in the

system, Tantra has never discovered anything similar to the hexeity (haecceitas)

of Duns Scotus or the deeply individualized

inscapes

Hopkins. Tantra accepts the structure of the world universal pattern, semantically conditioned

methods

by

as

of Gerard Manley

defmed by an

abstract nouns.

The

abstract

prescribed

are felt to be precious discoveries, related certainly to the limitations

of Indian culture, which only

a fool

would question.

sadhaka can reach bHss and release in

If they are

Among them

Hfetime.

a single

properly used

a

are -

meditation, the cult of extreme feeling, aesthetic experience, sex, drugs, magic

and

social action.

One story famous among Tantrikas is given in two slightly differing versions in the Rudrayamala and the Brahmayamala. It summarizes many of the chief ideas

behind the Tantra. Amotig them

are: that

Tantra

is

a

'way' superior to

combines the virtues of but not inconsistent with traditional ways; that different religious sects; that it seems scandalous to the conventional; and that it

lit

it

deals in a special

The

kind of ecstasy.

chief figure in the story

is

who of the God

an Indian culture-hero called Vasistha,

the prototype of the Brahmin sage, and is said to have been son Brahma and teacher of the incarnate god Rama. He was highly skilled in orthodox Hindu religion and philosophies. He is thus a very good symbol for all those in need of Tantra's lesson. The story describes how Vasistha peris

formed

orthodox meditations, with terrible asceticisms, for six thousand compel the great Goddess to show Herself to him. He failed, fury wanted to curse Her. His father told him not to, explainmg that he his

years, trying to

and

in a

had an altogether wrong idea of the Goddess. In the boundless material, brilliant as ten thousand

reality,

he told Vasistha, She

is

of which everything

suns, out

made; She was Herself the substance of the Buddha's enlightenment, kindly, loving and beautiful. Vasistha tried again in a different spirit, and in the end She appeared to him, in the bodily form of Sarasvati, the holiest Goddess of ancient Brahmin Vedic wisdom - an appropriate iconic

in the

cosmos

shape for track,

and

a

is

Brahmin

that he

trik tradition.

like

him. She told him he was

still

way

off the proper

ought to learn the 'Kula' method of religion, that

is,

the

Tan-

She said he could not hope to get anywhere by mere yoga and

asceticism, not

even to glimpse Her proper

feet.

'My

worship', She said,

'is

without austerity and pain He must go to Mahacina (probably somewhere in the Himalaya) and learn the proper forms. Then She dissolved herself back !'

into space

and time.

Vasistha did as She said. But

recognize there the great

among

reached Mahacina he was horrified to

Hindu god Visnu,

colleagues naked and red-eyed,

surrounded by beautiful their

when he

broad

hips,

with

women

whom

incarnate as the Buddha, sitting

fuddled with drink.

wearing jewelled

belts

They were

and tinkling

bells

on

they continually had sexual intercourse, giving

11

13

The

Art of Tantra

and taking great pleasure. Va§i$tha made

a

great fuss and protested that this

all

went against every sacred teaching. But the Buddha pointed out to him that he was making a vulgar mistake and being deceived by outward appearances. The men and women involved were doing things that had been prepared for by prolonged ritual and meditation. In reality their outer actions were merely instruments to an intense inward vision; the women were images of the great Goddess Herself, and there was no self-indulgence involved. He then taught Vasi§tha the special Kula yoga and ritual, and the sage understood. He achieved his goal.

14

2

No one knows how old Tantra

Historical characteristics

There are hints of it in India's oldest literature. The earliest surviving complete texts are Buddhist, and date to about ad 600. But there are many elements of what became Tantra in older Hindu and Buddhist scripture; and later texts even refer to Tantra as 'Atharva Veda', thus identifying it as an aspect of the most ancient sacred and orthodox literature

of Hinduism. There

is.

is

Tantra which

is

Hindu, Buddhist and even, by

Middle Ages it has flourished in many strata Bengal, Assam, Kasmir and parts of the South. It

stretching a point, Jaina. Since the

of Hindu society, notably in assimilated and occasionally

combined with Muslim

ideas,

and travelled to

many other countries of the East. It reached China during the eighth century, when there were two major Tantrik Buddhist temples in the T'ang capital. From these it was transported to Japan. It is likely that sexual rites, also familiar Chinese Taoism, were used by these T'ang Tantrik Buddhists. They certainly were by the Japanese Tachikawa sect which was founded in the twelfth century. But in both China and Japan puritan Confucianism has expunged the in

memory and literature of sexual Tantra, leaving only a schematic psychological version.

from

On the other hand, in Tibet Tantrik Buddhism flourished exceedingly

the seventh century into recent years; and Tibetan Tantra

into Mongolia, with occasional excursions into China. In

made

its

way

Nepal Buddhist

Tantra has flourished from early times, mingling with Hindu Tantra. In

Hindu Tantra was adopted in Cambodia and Java c. ad while Buddhist Tantra was probably known elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia

Tantra contains many archaic elements.

Some are as ancient as the palaeolithic

matched with them. The great French

caves of Europe, and can be precisely

cave complex of Pech-merle, for example, contains

a

female emblems which can be duplicated very closely

at

parallels will

be pointed out

what we know

as

Tantra

is

later on. It

is

therefore

chapel-chamber with Indian shrines. Other

more than probable

way

it

has preserved

that

an adaptation into later Indian Hfe-patterns of very

ancient and powerful images, practices and thought. Indeed India the

900,

unbroken

traditions of

is

immemorial

famous

for

antiquity.

There is not much profit, therefore, in arguing about the priority of one Tantrik sect or text over another; although, of course, historians must do so for their

own

purposes.

The important point

is

that since the essential ingredients of

15

The

Art of Tantra

Tantra are likely to be older than any of the individual Indian religions, there is

nothing surprising

each of them developing

in

adapting the ingredients to

why

own

its

a

version of

it,

simply

world-picture. This also helps to explain

which Agehananda Bharati has made' was not more profitable. For at bottom Tantra is not a matter of rationalized terminology, but of inner facts of experience to which terms are only pointers: different terms may, and frequently do, indicate similar facts. the careful linguistic analysis of terms

The important

thing for us

practice bridge the

is

that the archetypal elements in the cult

gap enabling us to discover, and perhaps to try to

may

in

vitalize in

same kinds of experience, learning to use them for similar ends. As we know it in relatively recent history, Tantra has been transmitted

ourselves, the

through family groups, pupil has had to spend teacher.

It is

said that

down many

only he

of pupil-teacher descent. Frequently the

lines

own personal and true who is fit for a teacher is able to find and recognize years in search of his

him. Since they were used either for explanation between teacher and pupil or for individual

10

rites,

most works of Tantra

person context. They are on

a

art

fit

into the

modest person-to-

small scale, executed in an immediate

brushwork

makes no pretension to perfect finish. It is characteristic of this art that the always knew what he was going to make before he made it. Even the minor details were standardized and prescribed, and artists had learned what they should be by imitating them exactly from earlier work. The freehand directness of the styles was possible because the artist had himself made the same images with the same touches many times before. Colour was based on a that

artist

standard repertoire of hues,

all

with their

own

definite significance,

and three-

all used the same set of plastic metaphors. But though colours were used primarily for their conventional symbolic significance, in practice they also have powerful emotive effects. It is not a simple question of hue, saturation and density. The pigments used were

dimensional forms

chosen, and adopted as traditional, because their particular colour-inflections

evoked the required emotive responses. They were not diluted in intensity or 'killed'; their force was always kept at its maximum. Further, such colours, combined as they often were to meet prescribed symbolisms, were nevertheless also juxtaposed very skilfully in calculated quantities so as to produce definite but indescribable visual

The

and emotive

effects.

figures represented in Tantra art naturally share in the

common heritage

of Indian traditions. But Tantra was never concerned with imitating an external

world and ;

so

its

figures are

all

to

some degree

stereotypes, puppets

stimulating by their visual inadequacy a vigorous reinterpretation in the

may embody

imagination of the meditator. They 84

of Islam and European sixteenth-century out between beings

who seem

to be

art are the interpersonal

aware of each other's

dramas acted

existence.

dwelling for the Buddhist Goddess of Supreme Her lotus connects her with the ancient (Joddess of the Oeative Waters, Lak^mi. Tibet, i8th century. Gouache and gold on cloth i6 X II in. I

Tibetan painting meant

Wisdom whom

16

almost geometric ideals of

beauty; and only in the Rajput paintings which preserve the fading influences

as a

the figure represents.

Sri Yaiitra, a

2

diagrammatic

embodiment of the

creative sexual

of the Universe. Rajasthan, iSth century. (Jouache on paper Sx X in.

activity

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m-

pi:' -

VJ

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A

3

stone pillar-sculpture representing

worship of the yoni (vulva) of the Yogmi as Cioddess. Madura, South I

India,

7th century.

Manuscript containing prescriptions and figures for visualization, witli niandalas. Nepal, i8th century. Ink and colour on paper 66 x 8 in. 4

for ritual

'

J*"}'"?^

^J:

-^Pki

\

^'^(^-f^

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,

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^P^^^^S^M {

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,

5

his

Raja Sidh Sen of Mandi performing puja with in a rosary-bag. Mandi, c. 1720. Gouache

hand

on paper 6

X

x

Head of

8 in.

the

Goddess

for worship. Rajasthan,

iKth century.

Bronze

h. 5 in.

[Opposite) 7

The Cioddess

Siva.

South

Parvarti, a torni ot the consort of

India, i6th century.

Bronze 27

in.

M

Il'l

i

lo Its

Long-haired sage in a condition of 8 sexual arousal. South India, 17th century.

Carved wood, probably from

7X

7

a

temple

car.

in.

m

Celestial couple in sexual intercourse an acrobatic posture, the man playing a wind instrument, the whole an image ot Sth centurv. celestial delight. South hidia,

9

1

Wood, probably from

a

temple

car,

h. 16 in.

Worship of the Trident as emblem of indwelhng deity, Siva. Rajasthan, iSth century- Ciouache on paper 10x7 in.

jj|jg-)Jgt

TV

:

.7?iit/T»lfrT»i*^K

Vajrapanu

Bodh.sattva Yab-yiun nna^c of a tcrnblo U>rni of the enU.odnnent and protectors the bang couple the hL Jsdo.n, "iBronze 9 doctrines. Tibet. i6th century.

",

,

"V;'"';^'^;^'^';

ot Tantr.k

Buddh.st

Historical characteristics

The

objective coloured surface

was never meant

with any sensuously derived image of external late radiant

inner icons,

whose bodies and

comparison was meant to stimu-

to challenge

reality. It

features could be quite unrealistic in

skin, many heads and arms were commonplace. The density and strength of colours, the vigour of plastic development could lift the imagery, so to speak, off the page or wall, dissolving it, at the same time interposing a barrier between the inner icon and any comparable visual object. This was meant to produce a higher key or grade of

any ordinary sense of that word. Blue skin or red

on the retina of the eye, a consistent world of the imagination against which visual phenomena seem grey and objectivity than any transient reflection

pale.

Tantra

still

exists as a living cult;

and although

it is

endangered

like so

many

other Indian institutions by the advance of Western mass-conditioning and

may

crudely quantified causal theories of man, Tantra

most

position than

to survive, although

well be in a better

will certainly

it

need adapting.

Its

words in their most serious fabulous wealth of Indian myth and legend and weaves the

vivid world of the creative imagination (using those sense)

draws on the

elements together into

programmed

a

dense tissue of meaning. This could quite well be

embrace the material science of the industrial world. Indeed one branch of Tantra has always dealt with physics and medicine, as they were to

traditionally understood; so that say, chemistry.

What

is

ironical self-hatred, purely

among workaday abstract tions

quite possible to reconcile Tantra with,

it is

not possible, however,

To

scientists.

a

Indian Tantrika

others he

knows

may

learn

Tantrika the table of elements or the

his cult

from the

Some

by seeking progressive

Most of these need not

conflict

with

they can dignify and enhance that

there are

with the

common

forms of molecular structures and particle physics amount to revela-

practices along with their explanations.

fact

to reconcile Tantra

of the actions of devata, and can be welcomed

The

tion.

is

convergent thinking and closed mind

some men and

life

as such.

inside, as a

rites

and

he has done from childhood;

initiations,

according to his ambi-

his carrying

by

code of

filling

it

on

a

domestic

life

;

in

with significance. But

women who may want to devote their whole lives to

Tantrik ^dhana; such people can take vows which involve leaving home, perhaps joining an asram or an order. rituals.

And

been quite

Then they

will start

more

intensive

although most Tantrikas have been born into their tradition

common

for converts to gain initiation.

Bengali poets were converts. greatest philosophers of India,

Some

it

has

of the most famous

And the Kasmiri Abhinavagupta, one of the who made what may be the most important

individual contribution to the world's aesthetic theory, travelled to Bengal to

be initiated into the Kula Tantra.

We know

Tantra nowadays from the manuscript texts called Tantras, in

Sanskrit or vernacular languages.

Only

a

few of those surviving have been

25

The

Art of Tantra

published fewer

still

;

translated.

times and places in India,

more

They seem or

less as

to have been

composed at

encyclopaedias of Tantrik

philosophy, and to have been copied and added to

different

ritual

and

many times over. The earliest

were put together about ad 600, but some of the most important and influential during the later Middle Ages and at the command of Rajput princes. They are never actually given hard dates, so chronology is usually a matter of internal evidence; and that is none too reliable anyway, since the compilers borrowed freely from one another.

Some

more

Tantras carry

Tantrikas.

The most

authority than others with different groups of

generally authoritative

among Hindu

haps, the Saktisarhgama, the Kularnava, the Mahanirvana,

Some

are

more

Tantras are, per-

and the Tantraraja.^

some to magic, more flamboyant and extreme than

inclined towards philosophy,

science of sound.

Some

are

are also important abbreviations or summaries, often in the like the

others to the

There form of hymns,

Karpuradistotram or the Anandalahari. Most of them

others.

set out, as

we

have seen, to be inclusive, combining into their symbolic structure ancient Vedic

rituals

along with sectarian deities and popular legends. Everything

grist to their mill; for

many

different

they take

it

Truth can be indicated by

for granted that

symbolic combinations.

is

From one

text to another there

particular consistency of system or names. Virtually

all

of them

insist that

is

no

there

which can never be put down in writing, and that Tantra can never be learned from books, but only from a competent teacher, or guru. A few use code-language for crucial passages. Virtually all use symbolisms which can only be partly understood by an outsider who is prepared to pursue them down to their roots in Indian life and culture. To the Tantrika, however, the whole point of his rites is that the symbolisms of which they are composed open in his own mind vistas of feeling and meaning which change him, obliterating his materialist view of the world. This demands that, as he performs them, he has to contemplate what he is doing with total awareness. It is true that many Indian customs are now carried out in a perfunctory and formal spirit. But a genuine Tantrika knows he will get nowhere if he runs through his ceremonials in an empty and half-hearted way. How the West has learned about Tantra has its own history. The most important figure in that history is Sir John Woodroffe, a Justice of the High are parts

of the

Court of India

He devoted

ritual

at

Calcutta during the

his personal life to

last

decade of the nineteenth century.

publishing Tantras, speaking and writmg

pseudonym Arthur Avalon (a very pen-name). Tantra owes more to his advocacy than to

extensively about Tantra under the

romantic and mystical the

work of any

other single man.

He was

writing for

a

double audience:

there were the Europeans deeply infected with Victorian prudery; and then there

were the English-speaking Indians

who were

of their caste-prejudices, ashamed and violently

26

mostly under the influence

critical

of elements

in their

Historical characteristics

own culture,

and hence anxious to seem even more puritan than

their

Western

rulers. Arthur Avalon devoted an enormous amount of effort to explaining and justifying the element of carnal enjoyment in Tantrik practices, wrapping it up in lurid warnings against taking them as mere bestial pleasures. He was driven by a quite genuine fear of being misunderstood by his audience into

implying, without perhaps actually stating Tantrika actually enjoys the

ritual.

Tantra warning that only he

who

He

it

in so

many

words, that no good

included extensive quotations from

has totally conquered passion and desire

is

hog-flesh,

wine

(abhorrent to most high-caste Hindus) and sexual intercourse (even

more

entitled to participate in the rites during

abhorrent) were 'indulged

in'. It is,

which cooked

of course, true that the purpose of Tantrik

ritual is far from being carnal indulgence, as will be abundantly clear from what follows. But we must also remember: first, that Avalon was standing out against a vocal alliance between an Indian caste elite and Western missionaries who were aiming to get Tantra outlawed (he was, of course, a lawyer) and second that the published Tantras as we know them have already been filtered, often many times, through the minds of high-caste Indian editors who have written something of their own prejudices into the very text of many of the Tantras, often adding long sections specially emphasizing the social and philosophical conformity which so much concerned their caste. Other European scholars have even been guilty of Bowdlerizing their translations, which Avalon, much to his credit, did not. As with so many other religions we must, for our own purposes, learn to distinguish between what in these texts is conditioned by local, historical and cultural factors, and what has general value. The latter we can assimilate ;

without prejudice into our

own

outlook. In fact enjoyment (bhoga)

is

the

essence of Tantra, as has been explained; and that kind of enjoyment can only

be the direct function of desire of some kind. Tantrik desire and enjoyment, therefore, rite

may

be defined

as

transformations of the raw material.

can work, though, unless the enjoyment and desire are there.

pretend that such

begin with, no

a rite

man

can be undertaken in the

spirit

can get the necessary erection for

No

It is

Tantra

absurd to

of mere cold duty.

a sexual rite unless

To

both

body can be

possessed with normal instinctual response, and he can on the basis of past experience, that the desire will be consummated in some way. True Tantrikas have always known - and declared - that the his

expect,

strength and success of their rituals depends

physiological appeal. This

is

a fact

on

a vividly intense

which many writers on Tantra

and directly still

attempt

to suppress.

A related fact that tends to be forgotten in what scholars have written about Tantra

is

that

caste system.

many of its

practices

were deliberately intended

A number of the elements

directly at the heart of

Hindu

to breach the

that Tantrik rites involve

social prejudice;

were aimed

and Buddhist Tantra had

its

27

The

Art of Tantra

own version of social in social identity

iconoclasm.

and virtue

mental blocks on the road to acts ers

which destroy any

is

^

The meaning

the

here, of course,

is

that a pride

most insidious and crippling of

release.

The Tantrika

vestiges of social status

have been inclined to overlook

has to

all

the

commit himself to

and self-esteem. Older Westernof Tantra; members of the

this aspect

may fmd it especially interesting. And once again, we can how the 'official' caste outlook has even been written into many of the For it seems that Brahmin editors may have tried to present the rites as if

Alternative Society

discover texts.

they were occasional formalities which did not really

alter the social status quo,

instead of as the drastic purges of personal

commitment they were meant to be.

Anyone who

its

actually carries Tantra to

must, can only end up

scandalous outcast.

a

ultimate degree,

as real

devotees

We catch, sufficient ghmpses from

Indian history to be quite sure of the truth of the matter.

What

known of

is

folk cult

and custom among the

vast populations of

ancient India also corroborates the suggestion that the Hterary record, v hich has always been compiled

mentation, to say the

least.

by Hterate Brahmins, needs a good deal of suppleThere would have been no need for the many dire

warnings uttered by puritan apologists for Tantra against the danger perpetrated by 'low-class' people in the

name of religion,

did in fact take place. Popular religion in India has always feature of orgiastic behaviour;

and there

is

in orgies

unless such orgies

made

a special

plenty of evidence that various

forms of Tantra contain echoes of the same ancient theories

as

those on

which

such behaviour was based.

There are vital differences at the practical, as well as the theoretical, level between Buddhist and Hindu Tantra, which will be brought out later in this survey. It is chiefly the Buddhists who insist upon these differences, for reasons of their own. Indeed Tibetan Buddhists, whose Tantra came from India in the early Middle Ages, now seem to wish to dissociate themselves entirely from what they know of Hindu Tantra, even though their own original Tantra contained many Hindu ingredients. Their special reasons are bound up both with their own racial inheritance and perhaps with Chinese infiltration. So I

can

make no apology

originally Its

was and

history

travels

is

tied

for presenting Tantra as the Indian

still is

phenomenon

it

today.

up with accidents

in the survival

of manuscripts, with the

of individual masters, with the extreme secrecy Tantrikas have generally

preserved and with the history of India

itself.

As

a

consequence the important

Hindu Tantra of Bengal and Bihar, where Buddhism was obliterated about AD 1200, retains and makes its own sense of many Buddhist elements. Indeed one Bengali Hindu Tantra is called, after an early medieval Buddhist goddess still

known

of Tara' devata.

28

a

It is

in Tibet,

goddess

Tarabhaktisuddharnava, 'The pure ocean of adoration

who

also plays a role in the

Hindu cosmic system of do not remain distinct,

typical of India that the symbolic figures

Historical characteristics

but overlap and interpenetrate. This

of Tantrik syncretism ferences

between

;

is

not the place to go into the complexities

but the point should be made that theological

sects are at the relatively superficial level

Since these are verbal and conceptual, they fascinate

and American tice,

at all interested in scholastic

offers

them

deep

human

a

argument, have responded to

Indian

it

directly.

It

concrete symbolism with which they can feel affmities through links, despite the cultural differences

be absurd to minimize. to

modern academics,

But genuine Tantra is so much a matter of pracand archetypal symbolism that many people in the West, who

in particular.

of intuition

are not

dif-

of terminology.

- which, of course, it would art demonstrated its power

Not by accident has Tantra

many people who have never studied Indian philosophy. It is a great pity we now have with us jealous scholastics who are anxious to protect their

that

study-investment and reserve Tantra for an academic and verbally-oriented ehte.

29

3

Sex and

logic

Some people are troubled by the way Indian thought goes in for vast and wideranging generalization.

It is

culture

made

reality, life

a sustained effort to define

and experience within

comprehend

all work on a From about ad 400 onwards Brahmin

true that Indian art and thought

principle of total conceptual enclosure.

and organize

a single

all

the manifestations of

imaginative whole.

It

attempted to

the history of each individual in relation to the entire cosmos.

It

pyramid of generalizations, each higher level being more comprehensive than the one below, to which different aspects of life and philosophy were made to correspond. Mental concepts that embrace the whole landscape of reality are matched in Tantra art by summary diagrams which refer to continents, planetary movements and cosmic genesis. One can easily be deceived by this bandying-about of vastly-embracing ideas into fancying that Tantrikas had an image of a world rather like that which nineteenth-century Christians used to have until astronomy taught them better, as a modest chunk of ground about six thousand years old with a lid of sky. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Indian culture, at least since the third century ad, has held an idea of the cosmos as being vast beyond human imagining, containing worlds numberless as the sand-grains of the Ganges, and developing through incalculable aeons of time. Indian mathematics and metaphysics have long recognized number, both abstract and concrete, of an order of magnitude which only became familiar to educated people in Europe during this century. When Tantra makes statements or paints icons relating the structure of the world to faculties in the minds of men and gods, one has to therefore constructed a kind of

12

130. 152

realize that false

and

it is

easily

made without meant

not simply being glib, reducing the content of its concepts to its generalizations were knowledge they were never

manageable proportions. Even though the benefit of

modern

scientific

to be anything but colossal in scope. Meditation has the job of filling the

abstractions with a valid content of reality. In their everyday lives the Indians

know what

vastness means; they live in a vast country watered

rivers, fringed to the

imagination they see even the most to their stupendous reality as

do not

30

by immense

north by the world's highest mountain-range. In their

see that reality either as

momentous events in

their lives in relation

on an ocean. At the same time, they dead or unconcerned with themselves, but as

mere

ripples

Sex and logic intimately identified, through those channels of creative energy, with their

own

inner natures.

Lying

at the

The

to cherished behefs

shadowy

link

sex.

is

root of Indian imagery

existence

is

an assumption which gives meaning

and practices in Indian culture. ^ even

sexological theory runs very

much

against

To some

extent

it

has a

though modern The assumption, however, has

Western Christian

in

it.

culture,

very ancient roots in the constructive imagination of the human race. It is this that human sexual libido is in some sense identical with the creative and

From

beneficial energy essence of the Universe.

courses of action

drawn

13

assumption various

this

may follow. The most significant consequence that has been human libidinous energy to be 'spent' in normal sexual

that for

is

a serious spiritual loss to the

even in erotic dreams,- represents

relations, or

A

person concerned, perhaps even to the world.

popular belief widespread in

and wet dreams give a hold to disease. Brahmin informants, whose special casteBrahman, tended to avoid intercourse even with

India thus holds, for example, that sex

Dr Morris role

it

was

Carstairs

to be vessels of the

wives

their

entailed.

found that

as

much

as possible,

his

out of dread for the dangerous spiritual waste

When their wives had a

'right' to intercourse, at the

they performed the act hedging

tion,

it

about with

end of menstrua-

ritual precautions.

High

on sexual

and moral virtue both seem to depend, to some degree at least, was probably the source of Gandhi's extreme sexual inhibiof which he made so much and which so troubles his Western admirers.

caste

abstinence. This tion,

Any ascetic who aims spiritually very high

must, according to

this

assumption,

(tejas)

his sexual libido and the semen which embodies it to body will then become full of a kind of radiant energy which enables him to work all kinds of supernatural effects; and folklore

has

that the highly-developed ascetic, if cut, bleeds not

hold in and build up both the uttermost hmit. His

it

There

may

are,

blood but semen.

of course, other outflows through which more generalized libido and they may be inhibited as well. Sensuous pleasure of all kinds

escape,

may be abandoned body may be tortured.

(food and clothing)

shaved; the

as far as possible;

what one may

All of these activities represent the cult of misers'

which has gained such

a

powerful hold

individual develops his psycho-sexual energy

though

it is

road are

harm, by Tantra

for his

own

still

keeps very

of

its

cult

strictly to this asceticism,

a vital issue

may

be

the 'sexual to

it

every

spiritual benefit;

advanced along

work a power of good to others,

their supernatural energy. In spite

Tantra of Tibet, which makes

call

According

in India.

true that Indians also believe that people well

able, if they feel inclined, to

the head

as

this

well

as

of 'enjoyment' some

especially the Buddhist

of treasuring the male 'Thig-le',

whose physical form is the semen. Tantra which has been rigorously vetted by Brahmin prejudice also makes a great point of such

called

Bindu

in Sanskrit,

energy-hoarding.

31

The

Art of Tantra

There

are,

however, other courses of action which can follow from the of sexual generosity. Folk ceremonies, such

basic assumption, reflecting a cult

95

spring-harvest Holi procession,

as the

when people

spray each other with

coloured water or powder and once used to sing extremely erotic songs and participate in

promiscuous

probably symbolizes

sex,

spreading abroad and exchange of this energy,

a

kind of generous

when it was at its seasonal height.

A connected imagery must have underlain the violently erotic songs and dancmany Hindu

ing once performed in so 14-16, 72-3

their

many

custom of

temples

in front

of the divine icon,

superb sculptures of the erotic delights of heaven,

which used

religious prostitution

such contexts,

to flourish

customs, the

as in parallel 'primitive'

well as the

as

widely

in India. In

more copious

the ex-

penditure of pleasure and sexual juice the better.

Hindu Tantra does not go

as far as this.

But

especially at arousing the libido, dedicating

17-23

it

it,

does cultivate activities aimed

and ensuring

that the

mind

is

not indulging in mere fantasy. All the concrete enjoyments and imagery are

supposed to awaken dormant energies, especially the energy which normally

fmds

its

outlet in sexual intercourse.

The energy, once

aroused,

is

harnessed to

meditation and yoga, turned back up (paravritta) within the

human

energy-mechanism, and used to propel the consciousness toward

blissful

rituals,

enlightenment. vastly

Orgasm

is

in a sense an irrelevance, lost in the sustained

enhanced inward condition of nervous vibration

in

which

and

the union

man and world

are felt to be consummated, their infinite on the astronomical scale of time and space. spite of the protests of some authors, much Hindu Tantra in fact welcomes

of the energies of

possibilities realized virtually

In

orgasm, provided

it is

recognized

as

being the analogue to ancient traditional

Hindu sacrifice. This sacrifice consisted essentially of pouring oil, fat or butter on to an altar fire, in which other things may also be consumed. Tantra equates the

male ejaculation with the

oil

poured out; the

with the rubbing of sticks to light the

who

should, for extreme

what

'left

hand'

fire

;

friction

of the sexual organs

the vagina of the female companion,

ritual,

be menstruating so that her

own

believed to be their dangerous peak, with the altar poured the fire with the enjoyment and the woman with the Great Goddess. The 'White' and the 'Red' were thus combined - a profoundly important symbolic conjunction throughout Tantra. vital energies are at

on to which the

Here 110. Ill

32

is

a

oft'ering

is

is

;

;

quotation from the Karpiiradistotram, which sums up the joint

from the code language in which it is expressed in Sanskrit: 'O Goddess Kali, he who on a Tuesday midnight having uttered your mantra, makes an offering to you in the cremation ground just once of a fpubic] hair from his female partner fsakti] pulled out by the root, wet with semen poured from his penis into her menstruating vagina, becomes a great poet, a Lord of the World, and [like a raja] always travels on elephant-back.' There may be scholars who, for reasons suggested above, would repudiate any

image and

act, translated

# ^

jfr3(^l^^;[^^^^^^«^i»'ti»«'»t^>*S'*i

Meditation-cards, painted with symbolic yantras. Rajasthan, i8th 51 century. Gouache on paper each 4 x 2 in.

One of a set of fifteen diagrams of planetary time. Rajasthan, 19th 52 century. Ink and colour on paper each 1 1 x 7 in.

55

Yantras, from

a

Hindu painted

book, with figures of dcvatas. Nepal, c. 1600. Gouache on paper 22 X S in.

Yantra incised on rockNepal, Sth century. 2 x 2 in.

56

Sri

crystal, for meditation. I

«KX1#

57 Tanka painted with nine mandala-yantras, which are meditated on in series to produce a special condition of consciousness. Nepal, c. 19th century. Ink and colour on paper 22 x 22 in. (Overleaf)

58 ///.

59

One

of

a set

66). Tibet,

c.

Tanka with

of seven mandala tankas, part of Gouache on cloth, 28 x 19 in.

a

meditational series (see also

1800. five

mandalas. Tibet, i8th century. Gouache on cloth, 57 x 38

in.

60 Buddhist yantra, incorporating a computation board. Nepal, c. 1700. Gouache on cloth 14 X 29 in. Vajras,

61

symbols of

Tantrik Buddhist Truth. India, Tibet, Nepal, China, various dates. Metal, varying sizes

(3-9

in).

Fhur-bu, or spiritual 62 dagger incorporating the power of the mantra Hurii. Tibet,

I

Bronze

19 in.

Buddhist initiation card

63

w

8th century. h.

ith

Hum

at the centre. Tibet,

19th century. Faint

4x4

in.

on cloth

Basic ceremonial and images

and tongue

laid in a skull-cup full

of blood. These, needless to say, refer not to

an actual but to an imaginative act of self-butchery. Innumerable works of Tantrik

contain references to basic puja, from the garlands used as picture

art

The

frames to the colours associated with the senses.

common

what, but one

group

is

list

of these varies some-

(following the order of the senses given

above) blue, white, yellow, red and green.

The

and implements used by Tantrik pujaris are often themselves

vessels

worshipped

as devata,

emblematic of the

make

Certain paintings

activities

and even rudimentary hands. The water pot devata substitute. In

whose stem

is

of the devata

who

it is

covered with

rites listed in

set

is

many many

self.

these objects eyes,

probably the commonest

10,

30

mango leaves and a green coconut,

behind

a

diagrammatic representation

intended to take up residence in

is

In fact there are

puja

piaja

painted vermilion, and

of the transmuted

by giving

the point very clearly,

it.

symbolic objects and substances used for special

the

Tantra

texts.

They

differ

according to the devata

And during prolonged meditative when many different devatas are invoked, each one may require its own

worshipped and the reasons behind the rituals,

rite.

of puja, either external or internal.

act

The way outer worship

is

converted to inner

is

described in the Gautamiya

Tantra. After evoking the image of the Goddess in the heart-lotus,

you should 'dedicate your heart as the [devata's] lotus-seat; give divine nectar from the Sahasrara lotus [in the crown of the head; see p. 167] as water to wash Her feet. Give aether as Her clothing, the principle of smell as perfume, the mind as flower, the body's vital energies as incense, the principle of light as lamp. Give

Her

the ocean of nectar as food, the inaudible heart-sound as bell, the principle

of air

as fan

dancing.

as

spirit]

and whisk give the activity of sense and the agitations of the mind ;

To

realize divine thought, give these ten different flowers [of the

freedoms from delusion,

:

selfishness,

attachment, insensitivity, pride,

arrogance, hostility, perturbation, envy and greed.

The supreme flower of

non-injury, the flowers of control of the senses, of pity, forgiveness and

Knowledge.' All these comprise the

fifteen inner sentiments that

should be

offered in puja.

Tantrik ritual All

Hinduism

is

developed from puja, and

uses images or icons of

piija is

addressed to a recipient.

one kind or another

to receive puja.

Indians have always been ready to recognize the holy everywhere about them.

Their

named gods can appear at any time, anywhere and their whole country;

which the divine shows

itself in ways and for which local tradition alone can explain. These hallows receive puja, the form of simple, maybe even casual offerings. At the humblest level the

side

is

scattered with objects in

reasons in

hallows a

may

be

a little cluster

big boulder on

women may

a hillside,

of red-painted stones

one of whose

deposit before

them

a

faces

is

in the corner

of a

painted red; village

field,

or

men and

few handfuls of flowers or squeezed

balls

65

The Art

of

Tantra

of rice. As well its

as the

general sacred spots in the countryside, a village

ou^n special hallows in the form, say, of

tree,

an old

The art-made images forming

a

gnarled and desiccated sacred

dug up from the fields. same function,

or even an ancient broken sculpture

anthill,

in

may have

temples of all types and

sizes fulfil the

point where the world of everyday spread-out reality and the

a focal

world of concentrated truth meet.

Hindu Tantra does much

the same, save that

its

images are overwhelmingly

based upon the germinal idea of the two-sexed divinity described in Chapter

This

the place

is

where Tantrik ideology

i

genuine popular

strikes root into

and ancient custom. It is impossible here to draw a hard and fast line between general Hinduism and Tantra. For the commonest icon in Indian temples is the 35,

36

lirigarh, a phallic

symbol

emblem

that displays the

male sexual energy for which

analogue of cosmic divinity.

as the

It

'womb

occupies the

it is

cell' in

a

the

temple, while the outer structure of the temple displays the feminine creative

same time there

function. At the

are also

innumerable temples and

festivals

focused around images of the Goddess. Tantra takes these public images

most outward manifestations of its

more

And

personal use.

in the eyes

cult,

since the feminine aspect of the deity

of the Tantrika, for the activity of creation,

cosmic Sakti or power-energy, which

offers

him

and origin by sadhana. The masculine partner the images

female.

Tantrik

pijja

plays

its

responsible,

the feminine, the

it is

in the deity

is felt

as a final

upon which Hindu Tantra concentrates

The masculine element

is

the best approach to his goal

remote, buried within the feminine, attainable only

Hence

as the

adapting and transforming them for

part, as

we

to be

more

achievement.

are images of the

shall see.

But Hindu

usually addressed primarily to one form or another of the

is

Goddess.

Such forms

are felt to be

powerful channels through which love can operate.

If one begins by loving a living creature one can end only in love for

creature.

But

if one

addresses one's love to an image,

which

is

merely modified

material signifying devata, one can end in love for the Devata. activity of piJja

is

an image which

only a preliminary to, not a substitute is

seen,

all

Tantra

good image

By

mind

art has

are

all

And

since the

genuine meditation,

beautifully and correctly conceived can supply a visual

pattern for meditation.

inner image in the

for,

a living

concentrating on the actual icon one can awaken

for

inward meditation and worship.

about

it

Since, as

something of yantra, the formal

metaphors for attributes of the Devata

its

we have

attributes of a

itself,

who

is

the

intermediary between the worlds of reality-extended-in-time and the Form-

No

image can thus be any more than a reflection of the true transcendent image whose sphere of existence is the MIND-mind. What one worships, that one becomes. Most Tantras contain brief schematic

less

Truth.

physical

descriptions of the attributes of the principal devatas, including the high

Goddess herself and the figures which symbolize Her many

66

distinct functions.

Basic ceremonial and innages

The descriptions are meant to help both those who wish to make and use outward images as well as those who need only to be reminded of the formal attributes

of images which they will inwardly realize in their

Among many Tantrikas it is customary be disposed of at

home

or thrown

to

away

own

meditation.

make temporary images which can

into water, so as to prevent

what the

physical eyes have seen impeding the transformation of the visual image into

an inner presence.

The author of the Tantratattva

describes the ideal condition: 'whenever or

look', he says, 'within or without,

wherever

I

substance

is

desire, as

I

Bhagavan [male] or Bhagavati

both vulva and wealth] in whatever form she mother, the crazy

always see the Goddess, whose

girl [beautiful as

-a

is

[female] [Bhaga

pleased to appear.

I

means see

my

sixteen-year-old], dancing with gentle

and the sword, mingling her laughter with her dancing, binding up and unbinding her hair [symbolic of Who in the three worlds has the power to break creation and dissolution] this image to which my heart is fastened with so deep a love?' The outer image

movements of her body, taking up .

.

.

with which you are concerned long

as

the real

in turn the flute

is

nothing but

a reflection

of the

image remains unbroken, what does breaking

So

real one. its

reflection

matter?^

Buddhist Tantra

may seem

to take a different attitude. Certainly

it

has

no

image to which puja is addressed by Hindus, power is displaced. Buddhist Tantra, although it has produced an immense volume of superb art, always makes the proviso that its devatas are purely 'mind-originated'. The fundamental difference between Buddhist and Hindu doctrines is here brought out into the open. Hinduism says that behind every image or reality there is 'something' which can be called by the names of devata, each appearance sliding easily into others up the scale from grossest fact to unimaginable Brahman. Buddhism, on the other hand, uses assertions that where we think we see something we see in truth 'nothing'. precise equivalent to the outer

and the idea of Sakti

as

any positive statement, cancelling every provisional expression as ultimately empty of meaning. It aims at a state of mind devoid of any normal It

refuses

existential content

whatever.

to an ultimate positive truth

mind on

its

way

to the

A Hindu image is thus a pointer, however crude, ;

a

Buddhist image

is

a

device for emptying the

void fullness of Nirvana, which

is

empty of any

existential thought.

Indian Tantra, however, does recognize a fundamental

between the two

cults

which Tibetan Tantra

denies.

community of aim Recent Buddhism,

way it uses images, tends to make the same mistake about Hindu Western missionaries made, confusing Hinduism's positive attitude to them with the 'worship of idols' - something which has probably never existed anyway. Monastic Buddhism has always tended towards puritanism despite the

images

as

and what has been called in Chapter

3

sexual miserliness.

The female

is

67

The

Art of Tantra certainly there as an important element in Buddhist Tantra, as will be seen in lo. But because of its interest in positive imagery it is Hindu Tantra which shows the female complex most clearly and completely. There has been much argument among scholars as to the genuineness of the ancient conception of a 'Mother Goddess'. The outcome of the case* is now pretty well accepted. The idea of a genetically female creative womb, mother of beasts, plants and men, which is a complex analogy between the earth, its caves and the human community of women, seems to have taken root in the mind of man probably by about 30,000 bc. This whole womb-complex was often symbolized by signs referring to the outer appearance of the human vulva, as in numerous emblems and objects from the European palaeolithic

Chapter

37

caves. Indian Tantra preserves this

symbolism, alongside

morphic images of the Goddess. The Tantrika

many

who makes

small icons of the female vulva (called yoni)

embracing creative energy for which the yoni 31

may

38

a vulva shape are used in the

also be

made

in the shape

is

is

own

anthro-

making

it

to that all-

the symbol. Ritual objects

of the vulva, or decorated with surface designs

of the same shape. Objects which combine striking visual or

176

its

puja to one of the

tactile effects

with

same way. The coco-de-mer, from the Seychelles islands, which is sometimes washed ashore on the coast of India and regarded as sacred, is a most beautiful example. Spiral shells too are widely recognized as a symbol of femmmity, creation and growth, and are adopted m Buddhist Tantra

The

as

symbols for the root-mantra 'Orh'.

association

between the vulva

as

icon and the anthromorphic female

is

by a sculpture which illustrates Indian practice. It represents a piija altar form of a female figure with her legs spread apart to display the vulva. This will cormect at once in most people's minds with the figures called 'Sheila-na-gig' from Irish and Welsh churches, which represent the survival

stressed

40

in the

of a similar

idea,

much degraded

shoe over the door, for

I'l

devotees

68

literally

'luck'.)

in Western culture. (So, too, does the horseOther sculptures in Indian shrines illustrate

worshipping the vulva of the Goddess.

Mantra and yantra

5

'Mantra'

is

one of the most important elements in

meaning of the word

parallels in English to the

all

Tantrik

ritual.

The nearest

are 'spell' or 'charm'.

But

these

words, which are anyway degraded in our own speech, have many deficiencies and unwanted extra meanings. So here the word 'mantra' will be used untranslated.

k

A basic mantra is a single syllable, commonly ending in a nasal rh, sometimes A complex mantra is made up of a series of these syllables, perhaps or t.

forming the abstract of sounds in their are the

first

own

a known known is the

phrase with

a

right; the best

Some

prose sense.

are pure

ancient Vedic 'Orh'. Others

174

syllables of the names of devata, perhaps shghtly modified and

given the rh or other ending. Four chief types are generally recognized.

A

mantra

is

to be a sort of nucleus or gathering point for energy, a

felt

concentrated form of cosmic power. patient study

and

effort)

To

one correctly (which needs

utter

evokes from the interfused structure of

man and

Agehananda Bharati has pointed out^ that the ordinary Indian, faced with a demand on his strength, will utter a mantra under his breath as when, say, he picks up the shafts of a heavily loaded cart. The mantras which concern us here, however, are those with a cosmos the

specific force to

which

it

is

related.

;

ritual

purpose.

They may be

times over in what

energy.

On

is

recited either voiced or voicelessly, thousands of

called 'japa', so as to

may

cloths mantras

A

be

woven

produce

or printed

may

cumulative stream of

a

many

times over, as a

42

more intensely energy which has been previously crystallized into a grosser or more bodily representavisual equivalent to japa.

tion.

Rarh, for example,

the Sanskrit is

word

is

single

mantra

focus

the 'Fire' mantra, Hrirh, a heart mantra, based

'Hridaya' for heart, used

to be evoked. 'Klirh' condenses the

when

on

the heart-energy of a devata

energy of sexual union.

Mantras are supposed to work by each creating

its

own

special

kind of

resonance in space, in the realm of subtle sound or vibration, called Nada, discussed in Chapter 12. interest in patterns

entirely to

And,

since a

most important aspect of Tantra

is its

of vibration, there are Tantras which are devoted almost

mantra and the science of sound. Just as all devatas are held to be of an original hidden double-sexed principle,

relatively gross modifications

so

all

mantras are held to be modifications of an original, underlying vibration

69

The Art

of Tantra

which sustains the whole energy-pattern of the world, and which is another form in which the principle can be recognized. The mantra nearest to the root41

vibration

is

'Orh'; meditation bells are

equivalent value

when

Devatas and cosmic forces

stick.

made which produce

may

in the right tone

of voice

sacred, and kept

secret.

its set

pieces of Tantrik ritual

But equipment

order

at the right

by mantras can be directed

they are being used.

to specific magical purposes, including

grow

or attracting

a neces-

woman.

One important 44

Some are especially

marked with one or more of the The energies con-

are often

when

healing, obstructing enemies, causing the crops to sary

time.

Tantras include instructions for using them. So

mantras which are to be uttered centrated

pamted

in sculptured or

of appropriate mantras, which must be spoken

in the right all

wooden

a

be evoked by uttering their mantras,

inducing them, for example, to take up residence images. Every ritual has

sound of

a

rubbed with

their rims are continuously

reflex

of the whole idea of mantra

is

Tantrik theory about

a

world of

the Sanskrit alphabet itself Since cosmic energies are reflected in the

sound through

syllabic mantras,

an extension of the reasoning suggests that

the root-syllables out of which the words for

of the world are made up,

things, qualities

and functions

the alphabet, are a root-form of the

i.e.

cosmos. And, since virtually

all

all

named

the letters have a mantra-deity anyway, the

Tantrika looks on the whole alphabet of his sacred Sanskrit language with a special reverence.

He

calls it 'the

necklace of letters' which the Great Goddess

wears, symboHzing her creative activity as sound, the gross form of her subtle vibration (see Chapter

43

lace itself

12).

This conception

is

often illustrated in

being shaped like the female vulva (yoni),

source of reality, whose significance

is

art,

the neck-

emblem of the

creative

amplified later on. Furthermore, the

individual letters of the alphabet are characterized according to their emotive

and operative

mantras themselves

effects:

different according to their 'fiery'

or

may

be cruel, benevolent or in-

components. Mantras with an excess of 'aetherial',

'airy' letters are cruel.

Mantras with more

But Tantra never suggests merely mechanical way, as crude magic. are benevolent.

that It

it is

'earthy' or 'watery' letters

possible to use mantras in a

repeatedly points out that: 'The

sounds which are uttered are not by themselves mantras. The proud gods and

were deluded by this false idea.''° For 'the immortal Sakti is seen to be of mantras. Devoid of Her they are as fruitless as an autumn cloud.'" mantra without Sakti cannot exist. Both flow from knowledge, and

celestials

the

life

And

'a

cannot exist separately.''^ Related to mantra parallel in English.

is

'yantra', a

The

gous to that of mantra

word for which

there

is

not even the remotest

function of yantra in the sphere of the visible

in the sphere

of sound. As mantra

is

a

is

analo-

nucleus of sound

by means of which cosmic and bodily forces are concentrated into ritual, so yantra is a nucleus of the visible and knowable, a linked diagram of lines by

70

«S1K>

f

Mantra and yantra

means of which visuahzed energies are concentrated. Mantra and yantra complement each other, and are used in conjunction. A yantra may look at first sight like an abstract design. But what we may call its 'abstraction' is the effect

not of its indicating an abstract concept for

mental class-relationship,

a

but of its concentrating concrete, formulated energy.

of mantra,

stylized syllable

is

Its

'patternness', like the

the essential element of its force;

its

spareness

not the result of generality, but of condensation of energy and content.

is

It

provides the focal framework for acts of meditative visualization. All Tantra art thus has in

it

a special

element of yantra.

forms which point forwards and evoke the

It

provides the relatively 'gross'

'subtle'

forms of mental imagery,

and cannot be mistaken for anything but what they are. The wide-ranging meaning which is compressed to a hi'gh degree of density in the purest yantra is

synthesized and fed into the sadhaka's

at first

sive

and diagrams, with

art

illustrated later.

To

the more expansymbolism, which will be

mind through

their elaborated

use yantra thus involves a continuous meditative dialectic

which content and concentration drive each other to a higher pitch of is one of the ways in which the psycho-cosmic mechanism is worked. And it is also one of the aspects of Tantra art which appeals most to people who have become disillusioned with the vapid conceptualism of much modern art. Tantra knows, and has long used, reductive methods and optical in

intensity. This

effects.

But

it

has used

them

synthetically, to concentrate an

psychic content, not analytically, to refine abstractions is

emotive and

whose only meaning

their relation to other abstractions.

The human body itself is which will become clear in Chapter 10. But artistic yantras may be made with coloured pastes or powders on the floor in front of the seated sadhaka they may be drawn or painted on paper either to be kept permanently and re-used, or remade for each occasion. They may be made in permanent form of many substances; the most important is rock-crystal, which has a symbolism of its own. Its clear colourless substance, which can be shaped so as to focus hght at its apex, is a very good emblem for Yantras

may

be

made of many

different materials.

often called 'the best of yantras', for reasons

;

47 46

the all-inclusive substance of fundamental reality; just as colourless light

includes

all

the possible colours of Hght, so crystal can serve as analogy for the

substance which includes

all

substances. In Tantrik

Buddhism the terms Red copper is

'mani' (jewel) or 'vajra' (diamond) have a related significance. also

used especially for yantras with

a

female significance.

It

must

also

never be

49

forgotten that the ground-plans of most Hindu, Jaina and Buddhist temples are also yantras (see illustration p. 73).

Diagrammatic yantras are usually centred on a single point, the point upon which meditative concentration can gradually gather and fix itself. 'One pointedness' of concentration is a necessary achievement for any sadhaka before he can even begin to make any progress. But the yantras illustrated here

71

The Art

of

Tantra arc also icons, subtle bodies

51

of devatas, bodies from which the gross physical

resemblances have been eliminated in favour of the higher, more inclusive

imagery of linked energies.

on

When

presence of devata;

own

its

power inscribed becomes infused with the actual

the mantra-utterances of

are correctly recited the yantra itself

it

physical nature

is

lost; the devata, so to speak,

up off the surface of the physical object and expands within the mind and body of the sadhaka as a dense complex identity, the presence of which alters his whole nature. Such yantras may be used alone on single occasions or in series during prolonged meditative rites. They may be used to invoke the

floats

subtle bodies of devatas to receive pioja, as an intermediate step

between using

and female and using purely internal images. In practice, only extremely advanced sadhakas can grasp the true forms implicit in yantra and mantra. For this reason most ordinary Westerners the gross representational images of male

will not be able to grasp

yantra

is

are those

even

in India the true nature

There

never written down. Perhaps the most subtle yantras of

is

which provide only

project his

own

of

are,

a

all

blank space on to which the meditator has to

familiar inner yantra.

however, certain things which can be explained.

fact that

it

takes a great deal of time and effort to build

of the imagery stored in

intellectually;

normally kept as a secret which can only be indicated verbally between

sadhakas, and

obvious

them

any yantra-mantra complex. The

in

First

is

the

up the content

realities referred to

condensed patterns of sight and sound can become readily available to the

mind only

after

long practice.

To

simplify,

it is,

in a

way,

like learning

extraordinarily complicated alphabet and vocabulary at once.

when

Then

an

again

on any given occasion it takes extreme concentraup the presence of the devata by means its subtle anatomy. The subtle devata mantra-schemes which are of the present in the sadhaka's body may be persuaded by a long yogic process to emerge in subtle form from his nostril, and take up residence in the yantra. Second, the general pattern followed by most, if not all, yantras tends to be a

yantra

to be used

is

tion over a long period of time to build

constant.

Around

the perimeter

represents the 'enclosure' within called the 'temenos') 'sheaths' or stages

;

is

a

square pattern of re-entrant

which

'gates'.

This

the meditating self is shut (what Jung

the successive circuits inside that represent successive

of inwardness, the multiple outer petals or triangles being

occupied by 'grosser' forms of energy, which are absorbed and further concentrated in the

less

multiplied inner circuits.

The

centre

is

the point

where

all

the original radiating energies are finally focused, usually in a single mantra

such 65

as

'Orh' or 'Klirh'.

The

mantra-identities in

be represented in anthropomorphic shape, the

most important of

all

all

the basic circuits

as devatas. In the

may also

great Sri Yantra,

Tantrik yantras, each of the outer triangles

is

occupied by the devatas which represent the subdivided energy-self of the Goddess.

72

Mantra and yantra

Ground plans of Indian These Nityas be

presented in

goddesses

of

how

temples, which are themselves yantras

('eternal ones') or

Mahavidyas ('greater wisdoms') may actually are listed in Chapter 8. Each of these lesser

human form. They

may have

her

important and

own

which fact will give some idea whole matter of yantra is. Some of the

yantras as well:

difficult the

obviously segments out of the all-embracing Sri Yantra.

lesser yantras are

Although, of course, yantra has the typical Tantrik double aspect, the Yantra

is

best explained

from

the point

of view of Genesis. In meditation

Sri

50,

56

it is

used in the reverse direction, serving to focus from the outer rim into the fmal 'point' or dot all the sadhaka's realizations

great yantra to penetrate

The

is

the very

it is

description

(p.

The dot,

this

image of the process of creation, metaphysically sexual, whole underlying Tantrik metaphysical idea.

to intuit the

which follows

is

based on that given in the Kamakalavilasa,

translated as an appendix (p. 198).

diagram

of cosmic energy. But since

182) these

or bindu,

add up

at the

Taken

in

to a 'definition'

conjunction with the Saiikhya

of the Goddess.

centre indicates the invisible

first

principle, the self-

originated seed of Being and consciousness which, strictly speaking, can

never be visible or imaginable. dissolution.

From

splitting itself into

From

the side of

the side of creation

its

first

male and female these are the ;

man

act

it is

the point of fmal

of projection consists

visible dot

in

and the smallest

73

The

Art of Tantra

enclosing

downward

pointing triangle. As the ancient and most sacred

Brihadaranyaka Upani§ad

looo bc) says: 'He was alone: he did not enjoy:

{c.

one alone does not enjoy: he desired

woman

in close

He made

embrace.

Then

husband and

wife.'

many: may

possess things:

I

later:

second, and became like a

a

this self

'He desired,

may perform I

man and

of his into two. Therefrom came let

my wife

acts: this

be:

was

may

I

be born

his desire.'

The

as

past

tense here signifies not priority in time, but ontological or existential priority.

To is

the Tantrika creation

the shape of his female

as Bliss,

continuous

moving

act.

identity,

So the form the

making

Consciousness and, of course. Being.

traces the triangle

the Goddess, the

86

is

which

first

is

desire

the world for

The dot

(Kama)

him

as its first act

takes

to enjoy

of motion

form of the generative yoni (vulva) of act, a trinity which can be

the original

expansion of space and time in

seen in another guise in the icon of Chinnamasta.

There is thus

the

'in existence' at

downward-pointing

triangle.

first

stage of creative evolution a dot inside a

The next

stages consist in the generation

by

this

couple of four pairs of triangles, each pair having one pointing up, the male, the other

102

down,

the female.

with an encircled dot inside

The innermost as the

pair themselves appear

sometimes

yantra of Bhuvanesvari, the second of the

Hindu Mahavidyas. All represent the 'going forth' or expansion of the nuclear light-energy from within the first triangle, the 'flash' and its 'developed reflection' (in Sanskrit called Prakasa and Vimarsa). The interlacing of the five and four male triangles generates the circuits of other triangles which the range of varied forms of consciousness and creation jointly emerge to shape the whole of the moving world and its history in time. The dance of luminous energy is represented in icons at certain shrines whose essential features can be visually paralleled by modern photographs of particles original female

in

in

cloud chambers.

It is

express time-patterns

by

characteristic a closed

of Indian

Chinese tradition, for example, expressing in

artistic

thinking, though, to

system of stylized enclosures in its

flat

colours.

own concept of creative motion

time and space, the Tao, emphasized an endlessly unrolling, never repeating,

continuous change

as

the fabric of the world. In the Tantrik context, however,

one must not forget that the motive force underlying the whole process

is

transcendental Desire, which justifies the sexual undertone. Desire creates object as cosmic desire created the world. Desire multiplied creates objects.

Withdrawn and focused on

special inner radiance

57-60

Buddhism

known

uses yantras,

the

Void of Ultimate Reality

it

a

its

many

becomes

a

only to the Tantrika.

on the whole,

in a less

developed

way

than Hindu-

ism. All of the mandalas of devatas discussed under the heading of the subtle

body (Chapter

lo) are, in effect, yantras,

meditation only by their mantras.

The

and the devatas

may be represented in

use of mantras in various patterns

is

one

of the few Tantrik techniques to have survived in the Buddhism of China and Japan, being cultivated by the

74

Hua-Yen (Kegon,

in Japanese)

and especially

Mantra and yantra

Chen-yen (Shingon) sects. The mantras in Chinese and Japanese diagrams, based on archaic and misunderstood forms of the Sanskrit letters, called Siddha

the

are usually rationalized according to the strict canons

letters,

philosophy. Since Buddhism's main requirement desire

- one of the

Four Holy Truths

basic

in fact

of Buddhist

the total extinction of

is

- meditation

across the

board of these diagrams cannot be called truly Tantrik. Recent Tibetan

Buddhism, however, and do both still retain

especially Nepalese definite

ideas,

means

Buddhism

influenced

by Hindu

for controlling the functions

of the

libidinous urge towards separation, union and bliss in their yantra techniques.

The forms expressing this union are based upon the germinal mantra 'Orh mani padme Hurh'. This mantra appears in a variety

are:

many

form's,

and

its

elements are distributed

of different devata-principles for combination.

'Orh',

the root syllable of origination

Its

basic

among

components

and dissolution, the ancient

which the presence of the Brahman, i.e. total reality, was condensed (Orh also appears as the nucleus of many Hindu and Jaina yantras) 'mani' meaning jewel, synonym for vajra, the word which means 'diamond', 'thunderbolt' and 'male organ'; 'padme' meaning 'm (locative case of padma) the lotus', a synonym for the openly displayed manifest world and the female organ and 'Hurh' the nuclear mantra in which resides the highest force of enlightenment, an alternative image of the supreme Buddha of any sect. The sexuality here may be remote and metaphorical, but it is not unreal. The union referred to is certainly meant to propagate a spiritually

Brahmin vibratory

syllable in

;

;

beneficial energy. syllables

The commonest Buddhist pure

around the

of an open

six petals

lotus,

with

yantra distributes the six a

reinforced 'Hurh' at the

centre.

The shape of

the strange

method) Buddhists,

implement used by Tibetan Vajrayana (Vajra-

called vajra (rDor-je in Tibetan), has a metaphorical

relationship with the forces implied in this mantra.

The

61

stylized shape probably

comes from a combination of first: an archaic Indian symbol of power, found even in the crowns of vegetation-deities on seals of the Indus Valley Civilization (c. 2800-1200 Bc) as well as on the gates of Sahchi Buddhist stupa {c. ad 10) and, second: the late Hellenistic three-pronged double-ended 'thunderbolt'

by second-third century ad images of Zeus or Jupiter. A combination meanings probably fills out the developed symbol of the vajra with its double-end and its prongs, now multiplied to four or more, which curve in to enclose the central protuberance. It thus probably carried

of

all

these underlying

conveys the sense not of looked on

as the

carried in one

And bronze

'vajra' alone,

but of 'vajra padme'.

It is

mystical bearer of the force of 'Hurh'. As such

hand by the highest

vajras

are

the

treasured

certainly it

appears

principles in Tibetan iconography.

possessions

of monks and magi-

cians.

75

The 62

Art of Tantra

Both these groups of people also use the 'phur-bu\ or mystical dagger, an which has a vajra-hilt, often with terrible faces added to incorporatemto the object their own spiritual power. In this it resembles the wands used by shamans (e.g. among the Sumatran Batak). The other end is a triangular blade. The phur-bu is used in rituals by which demonic forces are coerced, driven object

away

The magician wields it with stabbing gestures, thus conpower of the Vajra-Hiirh. Monasteries used to contain huge

or destroyed.

centrating the

'mother phur-bus', probably standing in the main shrines of

all

the

power

distributed into individual phur-bus

as the repositories

owned by

particular

monk-magicians. In a sense, therefore, vajra

yantra.

76

and phur-bu both belong

in the

category of

Sexual transformation

6

Since the inner sexual energy of humanity

is

identified in India

with the cosmic

energy, images which represent the outward appearance of sexual energy are

worshipped

as its

emblems. The most'obvious example

called liiigarh. Stylized lihgarh-icons are,

is

the erect male penis,

of course, the commonest icons in

Indian Siva-temples, and they will be discussed in

a

anthropomorphic figures of Siva show him with penis

erect.

level, since sexual

energy, piija to

excitement

is

felt

later chapter.

But

at the

35,

36

Many human

to indicate the presence of the divine

some orders of yogis worship their own erect penises, performing full them; and numerous icons represent sadhakas inflamed with desire for

union with the Yoni. cosmic,

is

One

constant

emblem

for this inner libido, sexual

and

whose symbolism is known all over the world in many India the image of a magical, many-headed snake has long

the snake,

modifications.'^ In

been used

in different contexts.

map ways

for manipulating the inner channels

ant in sadhana.

Other images

Tantra has developed the idea, and uses

it

^7-9

to

of energy which are so import-

will be discussed in

Chapter

lo.

form of 'enjoyment' which Tantra paradigm of divine ecstasy. As has also been explained, modem writers on Tantra, for reasons of their own, tend to discuss its sexual rituals in an abstract way, as if they were either purely Sexual intercourse

harnesses to

its

is

the principal

spiritual ends, treating

it

as a

imaginary or merely mechanical functions of yoga. In with complete enjoyment can be treated

as

fact, real

an icon of what

it

intercourse

signifies, just as

the art-made anthromorphic icon for outer worship can be treated as a reflec-

permanent and true inner image. The true inner image behind is the transcendent enjoyment in energetic love-play of the two-sexed creative divinity in Hinduism, or Buddha-nature in Buddhism. The joy of actual sexual intercourse, undertaken in the same spirit as worship of an tion of the

sexual intercourse

outer image, can help to

awaken

in the

inner blissful image, of which each

mind of the sadhaka

human

intercourse

is

that

permanent

another reflection.

possible for the Hindu Tantrika to treat sexual intercourse of any kind way, including that between husband and wife, and that between a male visitor to a temple and a female 'wife of the god', otherwise known as a It is

in this

devadasi or dancing-girl. There are in India

which date back

many

ritual aspects to sexual intercourse

to a very early stage in the evolution

of

human

77

The Art

of Tantra

symbolic thought. '^

Among them

are the

complementary

notions,

that

first:

which awaits heroes and pious sages is full of celestial girls, whose reward and second that the male deity resident in the icon of a temple, which latter is itself a reflection of heaven on earth, should be attended the heaven

love

by

a corps

so that 72,

73

their

is

;

:

of female dancers. These

when male

visitors

women

are symbolically married to him,

couple with them they rehearse one of the elements

Most of the superb erotic sculptures on medieval Hindu temples combined function.

in celestial bliss. illustrate this

Devadasis are also very suitable partners for the sadhaka's sexual

Royal or family

may

prostitutes,

provided they have undergone correct

share something of the special symbolic sanctity of the devadasis.

Traditional music and dancing were part of this system of pleasure.

Tantra uses

this

in the direction It

imagery of pleasure

must be obvious

fundamental of

tions

as a

mechanism

for

that the Tantrika

which Western

sexuality.

as a

- and indeed the Indian - does not

quick scurry to orgasm. This

is

distinguishes Oriental attitudes to

factor,

attitudes, reflected in the

and

both partners

all

to

is

add

Kinsey Report on the

matter of

which

is still

current.

done with the sexual act to make it better for their pleasure by raising the key of the tension, and/or

to

becomes

It is

Human Male,

day for many years became

To

as a

that can be

increasing the frequency of relief

a context,

manifesta-

quick relief being the 'natural' goal of male and

relief,

female, according to the simplistic biological conception suggests that

an absolutely

all

Kinsey reports and in

of thousands of banal novels, look on sexual intercourse

tension, appetite

It

Hindu

enhancing enjoyment

of ecstasy.

conceive of sexual intercourse

tens

rites.

initiations,

a

at best a

the traditional Indian

well

known

recorded

a

that the

man who,

in the

frequency above thirty times a

kind of folk-hero in America. Sexual love, in such matter of frequent happily shared orgasms.

mind

this attitude

is

grotesque and pathetic. Even

man recognized that such banality was absurd, and lacked any real Eighteenth-century Indian harlots mocked European men for their

the ordinary point.

miserable sexual performance, calling them 'dunghill cocks' for

was over

in a

few seconds. Despite recent advances

whom

in sexological

the act

knowledge,

the West's chosen external explanations of sex, attached as they are to a provisional

and impoverished rationalization of the

experience,

still

tend to regard sex

as the

and multiple versions of essential biological

Even

at the hedonistic, secular level

infinite

complex of human

pursuit of orgasm, act.

maybe decorated

Traditional India did not.

Indian eroticism always focused

on the

inner state of erotic possession. Those long sequences of caresses and postures

17-23

recommended

Kamasutra, Anarigaranga and other handbooks aimed

at

creating a condition of extended savouring or enjoyment; in neither text

is

orgasm

in the

treated as necessary relief, nor even as the chief goal.

for granted. In the higher reaches of Indian erotics

78

It is

simply taken

orgasm becomes merely

a

Sexual transformation punctuation

in,

and incentive

for, the state

of continuous intense physical and

emotional radiance which lovers can evoke in each other. Sex as sensation, but as feeling; attraction

is

is

not regarded

not appetite, but the 'meeting of eyes'

96

meaning is a problown by prolonged engagement and stimulation of the sexual organs, not mutual relief. It is difficult to know how many Westerners or modern men and women experience this condition; certainly very, very few works of literary or pictorial art even suggest it. And the self-abnegation it demands of both partners in prolonging intercourse and studying each other's needs has no love

is

not

a reaction,

tracted ecstasy of

place in tions

but

European

nurtured creation.

Its

are continually

fires

cultural attitudes. Laboratory-based conceptual explana-

(which 'leave the

The

a carefully

mind and body, whose

reality behind')

do not embrace

it.

postures and inward contractions performed in the course of Tantrik

union work on

this

Indian basis of sexual love.

81,

82

The special inwardly radiant when the erotic focus is

condition they promote only appears, however, shifted

from

the outer sensory personification of desire to the inner

whom all outer women are paradigms. keys to each other's

bliss.

This does not

eyes; the opposite

true.

For each

is

is

Actual

mean

Goddess of

man and actual woman become

that

one

God in the other.

loses value in the other's

In addition, the rites

and

mantras accompanying intercourse themselves carry charges of accreted

energy from past practice, study and custom these enhance the activity with ;

their

own

force.

We have to be

therefore to

effective, must

remember

produce no

less a

well as through extra techniques.

its own methods same kind of skills, as way can the sadhaka reach what

that sexual sadhana, for

delight through the

Only in

this

Maharaga (the great emotion). Mere mechanical performance is no less absurd than mere undirected indulgence. For certain rituals it is also important that the woman's own vital energies should be at their peak, and that she should be menstruating. Indian tradition has it that on different days of the month a woman's sexual sensitivity, which is related to cosmic movements by her own periods, needs to be triggered by special attention to different parts of her body. Diagrams illustrate these trigger points, and relate them to the phases of the moon. As well, ritual intercourse is preceded by the anointing of different parts of the woman's body with differently perfumed symbolic oils. The most significant rituals of Tantrik sadhana are performed with women is

called Rasa (juice-joy) or

who

have been specially

been kept secret and

its

initiated.

What

this initiation consists

reasoning hidden. There

of has usually

71

80

74

seems to be a variety of

methods, perhaps used together. All seem to be based on the idea of converting the male participant into an image of the male deity (e.g. Mahakala or Siva), the female into an image of the

Goddess

(e.g.

Devi, or Kali). Potions containing the semen of an already

79

The

Art of Tantra

another important method. This parts of each participant's body, while consists of touchmg the component it mto, identify it with, and transubstantiate reciting the mantras which will solitary, for nyasa, complex body. A more the same part of the devata's the subtle body of both sexes within combine may ritual, interior meditative and continuous japa may also be used the sadhaka's smgle body. Mantras the bodies of man and woman may be during the ceremomal intercourse. And force of yantra. These may be marked with symbolic designs that have the coloured paste. done freehand or with stamps dipped in 'divimzation' can be performed More important still is the idea that sexual already raised to a member of the opposite sex who is himself or herself

enlightened master

by

drunk. Nyasa

is

a

endowed

specially and thus has the capacity to 'imtiate'. A divme energy by the of vessel a mto woman, who has been herself converted men, can pass Tantrik or more divmized sexual intercourse and ritual with one especially was would-be initiates. This on the mitiation by intercourse with male on which Tibetan Tantra was important m the Indian Buddhist Tantra Bengali Tantra. There are plenty of ongmally based, and survives in modern called aspect of the cult. The women were textual references to this particular conbeen recent Tibetan literature they have D-akinis by Buddhism. In more - sky-goers) in Hindu Tantra they verted mto fantasy-figures (Kha-do-mas

high

75-7

may be

spiritual level,

;

The older sources show may be called Dutis, Yoginis or simply Saktis. obtain and essential for a true Tantrika to clearly that it was both difficult of the Tibetan texts describe the Indian founder initiation from such a woman. cremaa m 'palace her Padmasambhava, rapmg the Dakini m quite

24

Red Hat

sect,

which he had devastated by

tion ground,

his

gam his ultimate cremation grounds. And it may

magic power,

to

then meditated in eight further lies the mdirect evidence to prove it, that here well be, although there is only Tantra. most archaic nucleus of the whole of of Tantra was transancient times the special potency It IS probable that in mitiation.

He

mitted along the mitiation

women of a

a

female hne of power-holders by ;

was

diffused.

Some

ritual intercourse

scholars have identified

with them

them with

the

This connects up very wxll mysterious old sect called the Vratyas.

cult-practices among early palaeolithic with what can be learned about archaic has in which a female energy-symbolism peoples. It also accounts for the way Brahmanical Tibetan Buddhism and survived in later rehgions, such as dismale-oriented and not at all likely to have

monistic Tantra, which were

themselves. Any such female transmission covered the female principle for strict system, which depended upon was bound to be entirely outside the caste outcastc Such female transmitters w-ould be rule and custom for its existence. hav would them with To seek an initiation and, as sexual partners, defiling. part o important An pale of normal society. placed any sadhaka beyond the of ties those rigid precisely m the breakmg of all the appeal of such a cult lay

of the presence of the divim Thr kind of lamp used in temple puja, as an emblem century. C.ouache o. iSth 'BasohH-Kasnnr, and If tlu torsh7p-'s adoration. paper 6x 4 in.

^.

80

A pair of snakes, symbolic of cosmic energy, coiled about an invisible



The red Dakini l('> within her palace, surrounded by flying siddhas; she is the goal of the Buddhist sadhaka's transcendent desire. Tibet, i8th

century. Gouache cloth ^o X 20 in.

77 a

on

Vajravarahl, Dakini, female

partner of Heruka, a personification of

intense passion. Tibet, 17th century.

Bronze

h. 13 in.

78

Painted niandala ot

a

form of

the Bodhisattva Cakrasanibhara

with red Dakinl. Nepal, i6th century.

Gouache on

79 Painting illustrating the five powerful enjoyments (Panchamakara) ranged round a figure ot the Guru. Rajasthan, 19th century. Gouache on cloth 35 X T,^ in.

cloth

20X

17 in.

8

1

The

sexual posture

Mula bandha. Nepal,

c.

1700.

Gouache on paper

7 x 7

in.

bath.ng and body of a h,gh-ca,.= woman after 80 Anomtrng and massage of che x m. paper 7 9 century^ Gouache on before mtercoursc. Rajasthan. .8th

I

Sexual transformation Indian social convention which

it

Much

entailed.

Bengali religious erotic

poetry, both Buddhist and Krisna-Hindu, makes a great point of the fact that

and inner), is of degraded caste. Buddhist poets called her, for example, Dombi (^washerwoman low-caste girl), Hindus frequently called her by her own name, or 'the widow' - a type of person at a great 'the beloved' (outer

disadvantage in Hindu society. Other aspects of caste-breaking will be

men-

tioned later on. In historical Tantra

it

seems that the transmission of spiritual initiation could

run both ways, from male to female

as

well

from female

as

to male.

But power

could also be transmitted for meditative use by means of other surviving archaic techniques. Implements, images or objects

be brought into contact with the In Tibetan

and Nepalese Buddhism certain

the initiator seating the

male

initiate in act

The

imbued with energy could

74

genitals.

initiations are

image of a Dakini with open

still

conferred by

legs across the lap

of

a

of purely symbolic intercourse.

For the householding Tantrika the CakraCakra means 'circle'. At this ceremony, drugs derived from hemp were sometimes taken as a sweet, as drink or smoked. Then the five powerful but usually forbidden enjoyments (fish, cooked hog-flesh, wine, cereals and intercourse interpreted transformationally as the elements of the world) were basic sexual rites are these.

piija served.

ritually taken

by

a circle

of couples

as a

kind of Eucharist presided over by the

79

guru. In

Cakrapuja the participants forget

all

distinctions

of caste and custom. All

show of the One Brahman. The great Kula text, the Kaulavalinirnaya, points out that 'all the men become Sivas, all the women Devis, the hog-flesh becomes Siva, the wine, Sakti. They have to remember constantly that everything

is

a

take the five-fold Eucharist, consecrating the twelve cups of

wine with

The bliss they experience is a body of the cosmic Bliss of the Brahman, purifying all those components of the body in which the divine energies dwell. There has been much theoretical dispute as to whether the rite worked better if the couples were or were not married to each other. On the whole the weight

evocations, and unite in sexual intercourse.'

manifestation in the

of opinion favoured cakra couples could

ritual intercourse outside the

split to pair

marriage bond, and in the

with the husbands or wives of others. The

rite

whom

the

could be preceded by the adoration of one or more virgins in presence of the Goddess was invoked. But

it is

also

probable that in other

human initiated Yogini-Dakini played that role, and some form of preliminary intercourse was had with her by male participants. At a high level of practice, by participants of 'Vira' or heroic status, other things might be done. Partners for intercourse might be selected at random, by picking jackets from a heap. They could be chosen out of a socially unorthodox love. A single Vira might perform sadhana with between three and one hun-

versions of the rite a

83

with

Tanka representing his

a

transformation-icon of the Bodhisattva Cakrasambhara Gouache on cloth 29 x 22 in.

red Dakini. Tibet, i8th century.

97

The

Art of Tantra

dred and eight

women, some of whom

web' cakra the

might

pairs

all

of imagery taken over into

performed

he only touched. In one special 'Spider's

be linked by tied lengths of cloth - an element

art as radiating lines.

for the magical benefit

of third

Some of these

cakras were

parties, as for kings before a battle.

Despite the disclaimers of some scholars, such cakrapuja customs must be the original Indian ritual facts

which underlie

the

whole transformation

system represented by the circular manc^alas of coupled devatas which appear 78,

83

in the

Tantrik Buddhism of Tibet and Nepal. There can be

cakrapuja system

is

very ancient indeed. In recent times

little

it

doubt

that the

has been especially

cultivated at the Rajput courts of northwestern India.

who was intensively

For the sadhaka

yogi there were other

rites.

seeking release in a single lifetime as a

These involved prolonged

tion in sexual union with a female partner,

acts

of ecstatic medita-

whose aims matched

meditation involved liturgies, mantras, inner visualizations,

own. Such yogic postures and his

manipulation of the conjoined male and female energies. They will be discussed

later.

performed

As with

all

other Tantrik sadhana,

at

the lower stages they

in physical act; at the final, highest stage, as

were

an inner realization.

Something similar is the case with herbs and drugs, such as bhang and ganjam (forms of cannabis). Like alcohol they have certainly been used in ritual since

do

very early times, to help in finding the road to ecstasy.

for the Tantrika, perhaps

enhancements, falseness

is

more dependably than other

What

they

physiological

reveal something of the stark banality, the inadequacy and

of our everyday materialist image of the world, with

of accepted perceptions and concepts, and

its

its

narrow cage

neglect of the infinite, radiant

Europe an earlier generation of psychologists and Christian theosophists cultivated the use of ether and nitrous oxide to gain experience of the limitations of normal convergent thought and pertissue

of relations within the

truth. In

ception concerning the nature of time; William James used reports in his great

work The

a

number

Varieties of Religious Experience. In India

ot their

Tantrikas

take drugs for similar reasons. There are icons representing Siva as Lord of the

Yogis which show him carrying intercourse, bhang and ganjam are

own fatal

98

faculties

his drug-jar

under

his

arm. Like sexual

means to be adopted until the sadhaka's have been developed. As an indulgence they are absurd, and a

hindrance.

a

Krisna and aesthetics

The

erotic cult

may have had origins which were many Indian Krisna devotees who

of the cowherd-god Krisna

not directly Tantrik and there are certainly ;

would strongly repudiate Tantra, during

its

the

name of

Tantrika. But the great Tantraraja

almost incredible effort

at

massive religious synthesis,

from the Tantrik point of view, the entrancing person of the incarnate god Krisna, with which all the women of Brindaban fell hopelessly in love, was in fact a form assumed by the highest female Nitya in the supreme mandala of Tantrik female deities, who is called Lalita the Great Goddess herself, embracing all women and entrancing the world. For Krisna has become the dominant erotic symbol in the whole of Indian culture, attracting declares that,

;

to himself complete, self-abnegating adoration.

Adoration,

part in

devata

as a religious attitude,

name,

Sanskrit

European is

that the

has a long history in India. Bhakti,

a close parallel to the

is

culture.

For the

Love which has played

result

so

which

is

kind of love, and

this

is

sweetness,

the experience of being in love not with a

lover but a divine. Krisna has

come

probably

a

of cultivating Bhakti towards any

mind and body are flooded with an overwhelming

the Rasa or Raga,

its

important

human

to serve as the outstanding object of this

why

his cult

complex during the Middle Ages. The story of the incarnation of Krisna

was taken up into the Tantrik

long and complex. '5

is

It

probably

originated in the lascivious songs which were sung at the popular springharvest festival,

now

enshrined in the Holi ceremony, and forced

itself

into

Brahmin canon. An enormous number of vernacular works, especially poems, deal with his legend. The most important is the twelfth-century Gitagovinda in Hindi by Jayadeva. The essential elements are that Krisna was an incarnation of the high god, usually identified as Visnu, who was brought up among a low-caste cattle-herding people of Brindaban on the banks of the river Yamuna. He was an adorable child, bluish of complexion for symbohc reasons; and as a young man his beauty and his flute-music caused all the women in Brindaban, both unmarried and - scandalously - married, to fall

the

helplessly in love with him.

The

chief of

These

women

them was Radha, wife of

Vaisnava Tantra recognizes

are called the Gopis, or cow-girls.

93

whom

94

the

as 'not different'

cowherd Ayanaghosha, from her divine lover.

99

The

Art of Tantra

Kri§na's

complex simultaneous love

many

through

dance, during which in a state

affair

with

all

the Gopis progressed

episodes, culminating in the Rasalila, or springtime roundall

were united sexually

once with

at

a

multiple Kri§na

of complete self-abandon.

This love between Kri§na and the Gopis, Radha especially, again represents

same pinnacle of transfigured

that

different perspective. In

mentioned

desire

some of the

earlier,

but seen in

a

greatest Kri§na literature there are long

descriptions of the acts and postures of sex the divine lovers performed;

they are presented

as

unequivocally necessary to the superstructure of endless

transcendent Desire, the inner

A

fire

of Bhakti.

of the poetry of India, dating from about 1200 onwards,

vast quantity

with the aspects and minutiae of the Gopis' love

deals

affairs

with Krisna

most intimate, delirious physical detail. Young bursting breasts, swelling hips in charming undulation, small pink-palmed wandering hands, perfumed in the

black hair dishevelled by long nights of love, slender limbs exhausted with amorous struggle - all feature in the poetry. These poems are usually explained by academic writers as allegories of the love between human souls and god. But there can be no doubt that their aim was to raise erotic emotion and sensuous excitement in their audience to their highest peak - an aim in which music and painting also shared. For during the Middle Ages the Kri§na

legend came to occupy the centre of the whole complex of Indian aesthetic expression.

Furthermore, stories

She

is

is

it is

no accident

that a

played by the go-between

called Duti, the

sexual

rites.

The

cults

same term

as

who is

most important carries

many of the

messages between the lovers.

used for the female partner in Tantrik

and customs which effloresced around the image of Kri§na are

many were

innumerable. All were based on devotion, and great teachers, Caitanya and Vallabhacharya centrate

role in

{c.

1500).

by two them con-

inspired

All of

upon exalting the earthly life and loves of Kri§na on to the transcendent

scale, treating the

earthly iconography as a reflection, in the Tantrik sense, of

cosmic patterns which

embody

eternal truth

changeless Brindaban. There Kri§na footprints he

sometimes

left

upon

earth.

is

and take place

revealed as the high

The approach

called 'Goloka', 'cow-realm', was,

in a celestial

and

god Vi§nu, whose

to this celestial realm of bliss,

through

a

gradually intensified

on a human lover in physical love, then shifted on to the transcendent image of which human love is a dull reflection. An actual female

love, focused at

first

participant in the preliminary physical love In the domestic context says,

should look on each other

more extreme lovers

100

must

cult

may

husband and wife, as the

thus rightly be called Duti.

as a

Vaijnava marriage-service

divine lovers Kri§na and Radha. But

of love demands that

social ties

a

be broken, and that the

possess each other outside the marriage

bond

in a relationship

Album painting, representing a phase of love acted out by Krisna and Radha, described in Banudatta's poem 'RasamaiijarT', which is devoted to erotics. Basohli, Jammu - Kasmir, c. 1680. Gouache on paper 9 x 13 in. 84 as

(S5 The footprints of Visnu marked with symbols ot the Universe, before which the devotee abases himself in adoration. Kangra, iSth century. Gouache on paper 4x4 in.

Icon of Chinnamasta, the Mahavidya arising from the joined bodies > of the Origmating Couple. Kangra, c. 1800. Gouache on paper 8x6 in.

86

yi

Diagram

to the 1

world

how W, N,

illustrating

absolute directions E, ot

S,

JambudvTpa,

a

the transcendent system of cosmic space, with its subtly related through layers of matter and space

is

page trom

6th century. Ink and colour on paper

a

copy of the Sangrahani

5x10

sutra. Ciujerat.

in.

!

;«i< W^l^?5ii^

^^^^?l

«*w

/ I

r

a^^q Ewqw

(VRatH

am^-

zt\»e

«(\a«

ii^ p

world-tree, Jambuvriksa, at which the levels of the

Universe are

reflected.

Rajasthan, i8th century. Ink

and colour on paper 12S

4x6

in.

Jaina diagram

illustrating the eternal

recurrence of the sevenfold divisions of the Universe as a

cosmic river of time and reality, from a manuscript of the SamaraiiganasiJtradhara.

Rajasthan, 171 2. Ink on

paper

6x11

in.

Mandala of the Sun 129 Clod Surya (Nepali dynastic deity) as

supreme measure

ot

time. Nepal, i6th century. Gouache on cloth 21x17 in.>

130 Jaina diagram of the bands of progressively denser matter projecting from outer space into the Universe. Rajasthan, c. 1800. Gouache on cloth 10 X

5 in.

Jaina icon of thejina as released spirit. Rajasthan, i8th century. Brass h. 9 in. 131

I

Chart of the different regions of the heavens 132 indicated by stars, sun, moon and planets, from an 'astrological manuscript. Rajasthan, i8th century.

hik and colour on paper

s

x

11 in.

Diagram illustrating the occultations of the behind two great mythical mountain ranges dividing the world which flank Mount Meru; from 133

moon

a

manuscript of the SamarahganasQtradhara.

Rajasthan, i8th century. Ink and colour on paper

5x10

I

I

in.

134 Jaina diagram of the Puruskara Yantra, representing the formula for the constitution of the liberated spirit. Rajasthan, i8th century. Gouache on cloth 15 X

n

in.

Diagram of the cosmos incorporated into the 135 cosmic PuriJsa. Western India, 19th century. [Gouache on cloth 92 x 32 in. 1

j

Cosmograms cannot

specific

realizing that he

itself is

be specific

;

one with both

and the released individual

is

released

principles. Thus, in so far as Jaina

by

diagrams

True Tantrik diagrams based on similar ideas have, however, also been made. They are usually expressed as versions of the Cosmic Man, or Purilsa, an idea which can be traced back to one of the mort important philosophical Hymns of the ancient Rig Veda, and which also lies behind the image of Krisna as Supreme Body, mentioned earlier. The Hymn describes how 'the Gods' formed the cosmos by sacrificing and cutting up the Primal Purusa. His different parts were transformed into different parts of the world. Tantra thus are Tantrik, they are not Jaina.

equates that 'original' partitioning with

world'

is

its

own

descriptions of the

projected around himself by. each 'person' (purusa).

Cosmic Man

way

'the

The image of the

becomes an image of the original Purusa which each individby sadhana. Such a Tantrik image is

135

closely correlated with that of the 'subtle body' described in the following

136

ual

may

thus

reconstitute within himself

chapter.

136 Cosmic form of Visnu-Krisna with cakras of the subtle body; Rajasthan, 19th century. Gouache on paper yx 6 in.

from

a

book.

153

10

The subtle body

The

subtle

body

probably the most important subject of Tantra

is

art.

it

human body used in yogic sadhana, which has the essential Tantrik double value. From the aspect of Genesis it is the means by which his world is made real around him for every individual. It is thus closely analogous to the Cosmic Body. From another aspect, that of sadhana, illustrates the structure of the inner

136

it is

mechanism by which the individual can work on the between what he may think of as spirit and as matter, as subject

the fundamental

reconciliation

and object, or

Sahkhya

as

calls

it

T

diagram of the Tantra-Saiikhya system patterns of the subtle

mentioned

that,

body

and

'That'.

(p. 182)

illustrated in the

The purely

philosophical

bears a close resemblance to the

Tantrik diagrams.

once again, the Tibetan Buddhists

It

should be

that there

assert

is

a

significant difference between their pattern of the subtle body and the normal Hindu one, which will be discussed later. The two systems, however, definitely share the same fundamental ideas, and both demand an intensive culture of the body and its faculties. Some orders of Tantrik Hindu yogis carry such culture to the extremes

These

of possibility.

much

ideas, like so

and are not the which developed extremeIndian medicine, had

in Tantra, are generically Indian,

property of any one religion.

by about ad 400, with surgical instruments and which modern doctors would recognize, shared this view of the 'inner man' with the Hindu and Buddhist religions. It is found very clearly expressed in many of the relatively late Upanisads composed probably during the late centuries bc and the early centuries ad, such as the Tejobindu, the Varaha and the Yogatattva. The following is a description of the basis of the system translated as far as possible into Western terms. ly sophisticated practices

fracture beds

The Ultimate Transcendent Ground of reality and life, whatever it may be and however it may be conceived, is thought of as separated from the

called,

everyday world by

by

Being and the resembling speak. surface

154

a

the surface of the air

a plant

kind of surface, just soil.

The

the everyday world.

growing from

The crown of his head

as the earth

is

separated

from the

earth here symbolizes the Ultimate

is

The human person

is

thought of

that soil out into that air upside

the place

where

air

Ground of

down,

as

so to

the root-stem penetrates the

between the everyday and the transcendent. The body, out

in the air,

is

The subtle body

from the 'Ground' beyond through an invisible opening crown of the head a situated in the dome of the skull. From this place in the body system of subtle channels or veins, called nadis, spreads throughout the fed with vital energy

140

through the leaves of growing plants, distributing the vital sense energy out to the smaller tips of the members. At special places in the terminate. The organs, including the hands and genitals, important channels like the veins

on a principal nadi which runs down the Susumna. This is the same as the Merudanda

nadis branch off from various points spinal

column and

vital

called

is

Chapter 9 which is the axis of the world-disc. The currents of energy running through these nadis are called the Pranas, sometimes mis-

mentioned

in

leadingly translated as 'breaths' or

'airs'.

Certainly such figurative terms are

controlling the used metaphorically to describe them even in Sanskrit; and outward physical breath is one of the'chief ways used by yogis to control their Pranas.

But

thought of

'air' is

as

not what

is

meant

and different regions of the body are Pranas, the most important being the

at all

having different special

Prana of the chest, the next the Apana in the genito-anal region. The reality of these inner energies is a matter of direct inner experience. life, these In the ordinary man or woman, absorbed in his or her everyday currents of energy distribute existential

power

to

all

the sense-faculties, sight,

perceiving-conhearing, touch, taste and smell, to the mental activities of makes a world actual what are They activity. sexual-procreative ceiving, and to a so-called that would say Extreme ideahst and monist philosophy to them.

through the projection of this energy out through a person's out through faculties, rather like a multiple cine-projector throwing its images we whenever i Chapter in out pointed is as sense-lenses. It is certainly true that,

world only

exists

,

of the thingtalk of a real world we are talking of our idea of a real world, never cloud-screen is first in-itself. But Tantra points out that something like a is pronecessary if the inner 'projectionist' is to be able to see the images he jecting. This screen

Hindu Tantra

calls

the root Prakriti, the fundamental

void of particular objects, but which nevertheless person to experience what he projects as objective. This

'objectivity', intrinsically

makes

it

possible for a

thing to be projected in Genesis, the red female principle, the Nityato Lahta, or Parvati the 'wife' of Siva. In successful sadhana it is the last thing be merged into the experience of unity, as can be seen from the diagram of the

is

the

first

Sarikhya Tattvas

(p. 182).

This energized projection of

a

world

is,

according to the theory of yoga

which forms part of sadhana, waste. Some texts refer to the wastage as a rat or a bandicoot which yogis feel surreptitiously sucking away the energies they wish to conserve. What the sadhaka must learn to do is to control the currents, and withdraw from what he experiences the power which makes it seem 'real'.

When he has withdrawn the reality-energy he must concentrate it, performing a 'turning

back up'

(paravritti, a

key-term) along the nadi system of the

155

The

Art of Tantra

and drive it to the subtle point in the crown of his head where wide the opening into the Ultimate Ground of Being. Through this an infinitely bliss-creating nectar will then drip down to flood his body and mind with the thicker substance of Rasa-juice, a condensed cream of Truth condensed

it

force,

will cleave

rather than the dilute energy is

155

what

which

originally flowed through his nadis. This

when

constitutes the ultimate inner-erotic experience,

Prakriti are united in a transcendental intercourse in a erotic images. This nectar

may

Kamadhenu,

desire' in

the

'cow of

be represented

way

Puriija

and

suggested by outer

milk from the udder of the

as

manuscript diagrams.

In

Buddhism

this

juice appears as the Bodhicitta, 'enlightenment-consciousness', analogue of

transcendent semen, sometimes

known

as a

white flower.

To

achieve

all this

no Tantra, Hindu or Buddhist, ever expects the sadhaka to destroy his body with asceticisms. He must keep it in good trim so it can be of vital assistance. The successful sadhaka does not cease to be the person his friends know. What

human personality is added an immense superstructure of extra dimensions of the mind. None of his sensuous or emotional faculties must be lost; on the contrary they must be cultivated and expanded. And as this

happens 147

is

that to his

kind of sadhana

is

never

matter of mere thinking or imagination, the added

a

dimensions of the 'mind' are states of knowledge as

140. 141

as

concrete in their

own way

any worldly experience.

The details of the subtle-body mechanism are as follows.^' Along Susumna nadi are strung a series of mandala-discs these are often known as ;

cakras, or wheels,

and they are usually represented

in art as

open

lotuses

the the

with

numbers of petals. Hindu and Buddhist systems vary in the number of cakras they recognize. Hinduism knows a basic six. Buddhism sometimes confines itself to four. In more elaborate Hindu systems a number of cakras may be developed in the divine realm above the highest cakra in the human subtle body, beyond the head. The basic six can easily be discovered by a differing

modest 145

act

of introspection. They

Taoism knows differently

And

a similar subtle

are, in fact, a special

body, with

a spinal

type of yantra. Chinese channel, gateways and

symbolized regions through which an inner circulation

passes. ^^

symbolism of the inner 'illustrated tower' must refer to a subtle body. ^5 The pictures in the rooms of each of its seven floors parallel the cakra system, and individually resemble the Greater Trumps of Tarot cards. Both these systems, as they are now known, may owe something to Indian Tantra; the Sufi

but they also

may

contain independent strands of ancient tradition.

The lowest Tantrik

cakra, at the base of the spine in the anal region,

congruent with the world-wheel on

Hindu Tantra yogi

156

sits

this

lowest cakra

to begin his puja

is

its axis,

called

'establishes' or 'fixes' the place

on the

earth. This links his

Merudanda (Chapter

Muladhara, 'root-support'.

and meditation he

which

the

may

on which he

first sits as

of

all

is

9). In

When

perform

a

a rite

his solid centre-base

own inner forces directly to the earth and his world

I

Saiva Yogi called Gosain Sagagir 137 Mankot, c. 1730. Gouache on paper 9x7 in.

138, 139

Two

from an illustrated book of Yoga postures.

details

Rajasthan, i8th century.

Gouache on paper 64 x

?i^^^lR'i^^«??'iii'?

n

1 i.

.-

>^>-

'fl%??:§'?|

'^^fS

X in.

Diagram of the six I40 cakras in the subtle body. Kangra, Hnnachal Pradesh, iSth century, (iouache

on paper njx

i

i

in.

^»^|\|\^

141

Illustrated

book

representing the cakras in the subtle

body and

auxiliary symbolisms of the transcendent realm.

Nepal, 17th century. Gouache on paper 140 X in. I

I

I'

ff^B^N

I t I

t I I •I

I

142-4 Three from a set of seven paintings of tlu meditative series of cakras, once forming a continuous scroll, of which the last represents the void Prakriti. Rajasthan, iHth century. Gouache on papei each 16 X 11 in.

Diagram of the Chinese Taoist 145 subtle body. China, i8th century, hik rubbing

on paper 47 x 20

146 Kundahnl coiled about Banaras, contemporary. Stone h. 7 m.

in.

a lirigarii

/:>

—vr^gwmumti^mm

.'

n

n D D D u '

'

D

D n n '

'

D

:

D pi D^' j

b"!'

Painting representing the elements penetrating uno spaee 147 region. Rajasthan, iSth century. Ckniache on paper 7X^» i'l.

^

beyond

'1

b--'

the head

n o

P^*d^^*^f^^%ftiffi«i\fi-.^j5^jn^^ Image combining the of the thousand-armed Avalokitesvara, from an artist's drawing-book. Nepal, i6th century, hik on paper 11x5 in. 148

attributes

149

Painting of hands

skull cups,

holdmg

symbols for the

five

elements. Nepal, i8th century.

Gouache on

cloth

4x8

in.

{Oi'crlcqf]

Tanka representing Kalacakra, the presiding Devata of the cycle of time with Vajradhara above. Tibet,

19th century.

Gouache on 25 X

cloth I

5

m.

The subtle body it is

symbolized

diagrams by

in

invoke the protection of the

a tortoise.

spirit

More thoroughgoing sadhana may

of the locahty:

The Devata of the spot [chosen for meditation] should be meditated on as fourarmed, huge of frame, his head covered with matted hair, three-eyed and ferocious; he wears garlands and earrings, has a vast belly, long ears and a hairy body. He wears yellow garments and holds a mace, trident, axe and a staff with skull on red like the rising sun, and [looking] like the lord of Death to his enemies, top armed followers.^* he sits in the lotus posture on top of a tortoise, surrounded by .

.

.

.

This

is

is

as a

spirits.

upon the energies w^hich are flow^ing out Merudanda projecting his world, at the centre of which

concentrates

around the root of his he

.

adopted for icons of innumerable Tibefai^^fecal

also the pattern

The sadhaka then

.

now firmly located. He proceeds to use the inner image of his lowest cakra mandala-yantra with

its

mantras to withdraw and concentrate

his out-

going energies. First spiral

he must

from

with the

set

up

a

a pair

of nadis which

bottom around the Susumna, passing points congruent

the top to

left

system of inner circulation along

and right

nostrils.

These are called the nadis Ida and

and moon, the right white, the

left red.

When

this

Piiigala,

sun

done the outward-

is

flowing world-energies can then be withdrawn into the cakra's circuit of petals,

then into a central downward-pointing female yoni-triangle.

The

sadhaka, having externalized his worship of this yoni, performing a special

contraction of his perineal muscles called yoni-mudra, becomes aware of and controls this yoni in himself, as the subtle generative organ of his world. Finally the energies are concentrated into the called Kundalini, their

who

in

which

are

woven all

form of a

subtle female snake,

ordinary people asleep after having propagated

world around them by many active

fifty Sanskrit letters as

it

is

coilings.^^

She

is

the forms of the worlds.

is,

by using the

Anyone who can hear it

becomes liberated. The sadhaka's aim is to awaken and, by using yogic

truly

said,

the strings of her instrument, to 'sing her song' out of for

what

in fact

postures, muscular

138, 139

actions and sexual intercourse, vitalize Kundalini, compelling her to straighten

out and enter the bottom end of his

Susumna

nadi.

is shown in the Miiladhara cakra, which seems to body of the senses which is to be transformed through the

Occasionally an elephant represent the entire

upper cakras. Kundalini standing inner lihgarh

is

also

shown, when

asleep, as

being coiled around

at the centre of the cakra, covering

its

orifice

a

mouth - the same orifice through which she has to enter the Susumna. The cakra has four petals, and its 'presiding devata' is that same-red Dakini who represents the fundamental Tantrik initiation. In Buddhism the 'earth' colour

is

yellow, and

can provide the

first

its

characteristic

form

is

146

with her 75

square. This 'presiding deity'

transference in the process of internalizing the external

165

The

Art of Tantra

woman. Complete

transference can only take place after prolonged and

repeated acts of this puja and meditation.

77

The continuation of the meditative process consists of 'driving' Kun^alini Buddhist theory, some other female personification of the 'energy' such as Vajravarahi) onward up the Su§umna into each of the higher cakras or

142-4

dimensions. In each of them

(or, in

lotuses in turn

where

'radiating' meditations take place in other-worldly a

'transformation' occurs, concentrated

by

mandala-yantras of the cakra and reinforced by mantras. Different traditions

symbolizing by lotuses with varying numbers

allocate different devatas to each,

of petals the successive transformations of the principles from gross to

subtle.

own

In Buddhist traditions Buddha figures which represent the meditator's

personality in a state of

But here

stages.

'presides' in

a subtle

each realm

full

consciousness of each level occupy the elemental

who

and mobile displacement occurs; for the Buddha in fact, the

is,

Buddha whose own realm

(and colour)

the one next below. The meaning of this refinement can be found explained by Lama Anagarika Govinda.^^ This process is sometimes called Laya, 'absorption', and the whole technique

is

may 149

is

be called Laya yoga.

best expressed in terms

The

significance

of the

These are not material elements stages

known

to

states

of

states bliss.

recognized in Oriental theory.

Western

scientific sense,

is,

but represent

of matter to fhe experience of which

They match

exactly the 'elements'

European Neoplatonic and Alchemical thought, save

of the third and fourth air,

in the

of progressively more subtle

correspond progressive

of the successive transformations

five 'elements'

that the order

for a special reason, reversed thus: earth, water,

fire,

The ascending series, in Buddhist yoga, is displaced upwards by Buddhism prefers to omit the centre at the genitals. Muladhara is the

aether.

one, since

Hindu cakra where reality is experienced Svadhisthana, which Hindus place behind reality

is

known

in

its

as solid

The colour of

Buddhist Tantra

is

At the

six-petallcd

the genitals, Buddhists at the navel,

dissolved, lunar, watery state, the presiding devatas

appearing in fresh forms, and time being seen sequence.

matter.

this

realm

is

as a true

white and

its

dimension not

a

mere

characteristic shape in

a circle.

At the level of the navel is the ten-petalled Hindu Manipura cakra. Its name means 'jewel city'. The 'mani' is the same word as that which means both 'jewel' and 'phallic principle' in the famous Tibetan mantra mentioned in Chapter 5, 'Orh mani padme Hurh'. This centre is at the heart in Buddhist Tantra. Here is the region of the mystical fire, and in Hinduism its devatas are the patrons of the cremation ground. ^^ At the level of this cakra the world is

consumed and transformed through

the agency of flame generated

upper and lower psychic energies

combination, and time

in

At

166

Buddhist Tantra this level

is

its

colour

is

carried out the

in

is

by the

transcended;

red and its shape an upward-pointing triangle. famous gTum-mo ritual of Tibetan Lamaism

The subtle body which arouses the inner

warm among At the twelve its

level

is

of magical purposes, including keeping

of the heart on the Susumna

petals. In

shape

fire for all sorts

the snows. is

the

Hindu Anahata

cakra, with

Buddhism it is at the level of the throat its colour is green and Here reality is gathered into a single subtilized image ;

a semicircle.

of the smoke-like principle of air, the realm of undefined possibility

in space

and time in which the most fundamental cosmic sound-frequencies generate

The Hindu Goddess-transformation here

their first vibration-patterns.

yellow

'like

Hindu

centre

itself,

tion.

is

a

golden female triangle with, inside

which has no base on which

Siva liiigarh

ing

among monsoon-clouds'. Most important of all,

lightning

it,

the self-originated

to stand, being oval

it is

;

here generat-

expanding from nothing, inside the most primal phase of materializa-

Here, therefore, resides the root of the sense of 'I-ness', distinct from 'the

other'.

Immediately below

this

cakra

Hindu Tantra sometimes recognizes where prolonged

acts

of

may

be

held to be the island stronghold of personal selfhood,

its

another smaller one, containing

a

jewelled

altar,

mental worship directed towards the devatas of the Anahata cakra performed. This

is

eight petals symbolizing the eight cemeteries

The sadhaka may meditate on full

is

in the

Kundalini yoga.

encircled

by

a

It floats,

this island

mentioned

Chapter

in

of gems, even

as

8.

an alternative to

the Kaulavalinirnaya says, in the ocean of nectar

beach of golden sand.

It is

thickly

grown with

trees

of jewels,

full of birds. At the centre is the Kalpa or aeon tree composed of the fifty letters of the alphabet, often represented in Tantra art. At the foot of this tree stands the splendid mandala-temple of light with walls of gold, hung with jewels and garlanded with beautiful women. It is entered by four doors that are guarded by gods. Silken whisks and banners float in an

golden lotuses and blossoms,

On

incense-perfumed wind.

a jewel-altar at its centre

vase, overflowing with nectar.

The

throat cakra in

To

Buddhism

called Visiiddha, sixteen petalled

this is

he

may

ofler

the region of

and coloured

a

all

air.

is

the great symbolic

kinds of piija. In

smoky

Hindu Tantra

it is

purple, symbolizing

knowledge beyond all possible physical white circle. The presiding devata is the half-male,

the region of aether, the state of

expression.

At

its

centre

is

a

half-female form of the original two-sexed principle in a state existentially

161

and female. The Goddess-form is pure white. This elemental region of aether, however, Buddhists locate in the crown of the head, and give it the colour blue, with a flamboyant nasal dot-

prior to separation into distinct male

shaped mantra. Most Hindu Tantra, since throat, envisages

two

two

it

locates the aether realm in the

further cakras above, one

petals, called the Ajiia, the

other in the

between the

eyes, white,

crown of the head,

with

called Sahasrara,

the thousand-pctalled. In the Ajiia, the place

reach

a state

of the

'third eye'

of wisdom, the sadhaka's

of formless contemplation. The subtlest

state

of mind

is

faculties

there

;

the

167

The

Art of Tantra

mantra

'Orh'

is

itself.

Devata appears only

as a

yoni (vulva shape) enclosing an

Here the sadhaka achieves union of the two absolute principles into the unitary Brahman. This is probably the most important meditative cakra of all to the Hindu Tantrika. pure white

elliptical

Beyond

it is

lirigarh.

the Sahasrara,

its

thousand petals encircling the point of utter-

which opens onto the engulfmg void of supernal space. Its rays are the nectar of immortality. As experience it is Nirvana. It is the gate of Being itself, through which men and their worlds are sustained, the place alike of release and Genesis. It can only be reached by male and female joined in sexual union. As to whether the union needs to be outward and physical as well as purely inward and symbolic there is disagreement. The most archaic strands of Tantra that survive today only among a few Hindu sects almost certainly recognized that outer union was the most powerful medium. The two lovers were said each to give the other, quite literally, what the other lacked of completeness. Joined, they may become more than either can be alone. Other most

sects,

brilliant light

especially the Tibetan Buddhists, require that the

union be entirely

subjective, combining within the single person the elements of 'active com-

passion' as the male, 'wisdom' as the female, into a

Above cakras,

to

comprehensive

insight.

some late traditions have added a series of further 'where only the Gods reside'. These must be explained as corresponding the Sahasrara

inward psychic experiences but they ;

may also represent a speculative device

through the barrier of definitions conditioned by the noun

for breaking

(see

3), which must have grown up when literary descriptions of the 'highest place' had become over-familiar and obstructive. The Tantrik Buddhism (Vajrayana) of Eastern India, Tibet and China

Chapter

involves cakras.

its

Its

own

special sets

mind

in the

Guhyasamaja Tantra, describes how when the becomes united with the void of wisdom, the sky of

great early text, the

subtle energy (Bodhicitta)

the

of devatas organized into mandalas placed

fills

emerge and

with

infinite visions

and

scenes.

Then

like sparks

seed-mantras

complete and glowing living forms of which confront the meditator. Their only with him; they act out no notional interpersonal drama in-

crystallize gradually into

devatas, beautiful or terrible, relationship

is

dependent of him. Once they are thoroughly realized leave the sadhaka.

in meditation, they

never

They become like extensions of his faculties, advancing his him to produce physical effects in the world. In fact

meditation, and helping

form of a devata is nothing but an explosion of the void, naturally nonexistent' (i.e. beyond the scope of convergent logic), but depends on a chain of particularization within the void which makes a particular stretch of the psychic and cosmic whole available to the meditator. They present themselves 'the

like visions

upon

within

with those of the

151

supernatural clouded or flaming space, superimposed

latter

- the

Diagram of the cakras

(louachc

168

a

a landscape setting, the three

(Ml

paper

12x9

in.

dimensions of the former quite inconsistent

basic pattern of the Tibetan tanka picture.

in the subtle

body. Kangra, Himachal Pradesh,

c.

1820.

^'3Ti''D-2;3fq

152

The combined

subtle

and cosmic bodies in the form of the 'elements', as Svayambhunatha, the selforiginated lord. Nepal, 17th century. Gouache on cloth

74 X 30

in.

'^

f?f;:-s4:^:'

Tanka, depicting the mandalas of the Peaceful Buddhas, of the KnowledgeHolder and the Wrathful Buddhas. Tibet, i8th century. Gouache on cloth 29 X 22 in. 153

^ii^fl:

m 1 "'^l 1 ii

^

meditaTanka, representing the niandala (^f the Supreme Buddha Vajrasattva, Tibet. iSth knowledge. ot conditu^i ultimate the generate tion upon which can century. Ciouachc on cloth 21x17 in. I

54

Vnirasattva m union with the 155 16th century. Gilt bronze with jewels,

Supreme Wisdom i

i

m.

Vajradhatvisvari. Tibet.

>

157

The

originally Persian mythical bird,

symbohzing lower constituents of the Gouache on paper lo x 12 in.

<

Simurgh, holding fast nine elephants Kangra school, i8th century.

partial self

Tanka representing the Supreme Buddha Vajrasattva generating mandalas. 156 Tibet, 1 8th century. Gouache on cloth 26 x 18 in.

cesses

Two from a set of thirteen leaves from a manuscript illustrating the proof projective-evolution of the Universe. Western hidia, c. 1700. Gouache on

paper

10x5

158-9

in.

The subtle body This idea of iconography led to Buddhism. Large numbers of special sixth to twelfth century,

many

variations

of devata

made

the figures,

figures.

were developed during the ad iioo by the great Indian sage

man(;lalas

recorded

Abhayakaragupta and preserved

c.

These co-ordinated innumerable

in Tibet. ^^

The

developments within Tantrik

special

largest collection

in the eighteenth century,

The

originally contained 787 images.

lists

of artistic icons

illustrating

was found in Peking in 1926. It upon which the mandalas were

based are often quite inconsistent; the 'sixteen Bodhisattvas', for example, can differ drastically

may

according to different usages. These inconsistencies

indicate local variations

among

the idea behind this Buddhist

the traditions

which have been

mandala system

is

collected.

But

Any man-

always the same.

becomes

dala or cakra of devatas, thoroughly realized in meditation,

permanent property of the sadhaka's inner being, an added dimension

a

to his

total condition.

The

course of an individual's spiritual history

mandala

assimilate a given

diagrammatic complex structured around it

contains

upon

gyrating within

meaning. In

crystallize

There

is,

itself,

as a

;

the different figures

of psychological experience and

stretches

a sense, therefore, the

absorb, the greater his

The mandala

a central point, focuses the energies

Susumna while

the meditator's central it

may demand that he learn and

for a special occasion.

more mandalas

a

sadhaka can realize and

endowment.

however, one leading pattern which co-ordinates

possible mandalas of this

Buddhism, which

the only Vajrayana mandala.

It is

that

is

all

many

the

often (wrongly) believed to be

of the peaceful or Dhyani Buddhas,

supplemented by matching mandalas of 'Knowledge Holders' and 'Wrathful' devatas. Again, not

all

153

the surviving versions are totally consistent. Their

symbolism and manipulation are extremely refined, and known to very few masters even in the Tibetan sects. Some indication has already been given (p. 136) of parts of their meaning; other parts also relate to specific points of Buddhist psychology and metaphysics. The important thing here of them

in itself

is

that

none

alone represents enlightenment. All three mandalas need to be

superimposed and fused together into

a single

image.

Those mandalas occupy Vajrayana's three upper cakras - of fire at the heart, of air at the throat and of aether in the crown of the head. Each mandala must be inwardly

'realized',

with

its full

complement of meaning,

cakra-level of knowledge.

They

roughly on

the centre and

a plane,

one

at

are

all

conceived

one

south, east, north and west of each mandala.

region occupied by in

its

his

five circles

each of the four directions, circle

is

again an elemental

female wisdom-condition,

of intuition. The Buddha-states

at the centre;

Each

appropriate

at its

groups of

own presiding Buddha of appropriate symbolic colour,

symbolic sexual union with

state

at

as

in

i.e.

in a specific

each mandala are focused in the figures

and each mandala represents

a

transformation of the others. Each

177

The

Art of Tantra

of five

three levels represents the modification and sublimation major human emotional hindrances, correlated both with the sense-realms and with the psychological categories (skandhas) to which all experience is reduced according to Buddhist tradition. Each also has a special kind of insight; the names are meaningless without a knowledge of the

of the

set

of grades of the

at all

five

condition. The five regions are: in the blue centre region Buddha Vairocana, whose emotional realm is 'fascination', sense-field 'sight' and skandha 'visible form' in the yellow southern region Buddha Ratnasambhava, whose ;

emotional realm

is

sense-field 'sound'

ern region field 'taste'

and skandha

'pride', sense-field 'touch'

white eastern region

is

'feelings'; in the

Buddha Ak§obhya, whose emotional realm

and skanda

'intellectual discrimination'

;

in the

Buddha Amoghasiddhi, whose emotional realm and skandha

'traces

of habit-energy from past

is

is

'rage',

green north-

'envy', sense-

lives'

in the red

;

western region Buddha Amitabha (or Amitayus), whose emotional realm 'lust', its

a

sense-field 'smell'

and skandha

'ideas'.

Each

is

'direction' save the centre has

own special terrifying guardian figure, also represented in sexual union with

female counterpart. These

on the outside of the

circle

last

may themselves have

All the Buddha-figures

they are the focal centres and

all

;

morphic

'reflexes'

are the particular deities of the people, of those

of initiates. their

own mandalas, of which own special anthropo-

have several of their

or 'projections' into the lower grades of spiritual

life.

Chief

of these are the Bodhisattvas, figures of infinite compassion. The most important are Avalokitesvara-Padmapani, a reflex of Amitabha, Samantabhadra of

Vairocana, and Manjusri of Ak§obhya. There are female Bodhisattvas too,

among whom may be ranked means 'She who

causes one to

the various coloured Taras.

cross' ,

the

word

'cross'

of the stormy torrent of existence which

'the other side'

The name

implying

Mantra of Supreme Wisdom. The Knowledge-Holders are usually represented as

is

'Tara'

safely reaching

alluded to in the

most ancient Buddhist

figures

matching the

colour of their equivalent Buddha-region, dancing in sexual intercourse with different-coloured Dakinis; their faces

Their meaning partners,

who

is

wear

always kept particularly

slightly 'enraged' expressions.

secret,

but

it

is

are always Dakinis, that they symbolize the

initiatory states.

The

significance of the

clear from their whole gamut of

topmost mandala of big-bellied and

raging 'Wrathful Heriikas', each dancing with his female reflection, his gross phallus thrust into her, hair bristling long and wild, aureoled in flame, has been

suggested earlier on

(p. 136).

But the

fact that these

Buddha-transformations

inhabit the highest region in the Buddhist subtle-body, called variously the

'Ocean of reconciliation', of the Void', gives them

'the self-originated Universal

a special character.

or negatives of the colours of their

all

darkenings

corresponding Buddhas - brown, tawny,

black, dark-green, red-black. Their 'condition'

178

Body', 'the Totality

Their colours are

is

the opposite of the 'Peace' of

The subtle body the all

Dhyani-Buddhas. Thus they represent the ultimate 'cancelhng through' of the obvious virtues which outu^ard teachings name and propagate. Their

them with the image of the completed Tantrik sadhaka book ends (p. 197). The special kind of 'integration' symbolinitiations of the Knowledge-Holders is transformed at this level

general aspect connects

with which ized

by the

this

into an apparent freedom, an identification with originating vortices within

the Void. Their

names and those of their females

of the esoteric emblems which hnk

Buddha,

S.

all

Ratna, E. Vajra, N. Karma,

jewel, vajra, sacrificial

sword and

are

all

formed from the names

the stages of Buddha-transformation (C.

W. Padma, symbohzed by

lotus).

Since the general character of these 'Wrathful' figures generic 'rage', there the

is

always

Buddha Aksobhya of the

Vajra so :

own

much so

mandala,

is

that

felt

wheel,

East,

whose emotional realm

Ak§obhya, although

his

somehow

expresses

connexion between them and

to he a special

is

is

'rage'

and family

not the central position in his

often said to be the 'originator' of the other four. Since the

body and hence higher in the existential chain of Vajrayana, 'originator' here must mean that he is the link between his own peaceful mandala and the higher mandalas where a transcendentalized 'rage' prevails. This is probably the reason why Aksobhya is given a central position in some sub-Tantrik Buddhism (e.g. in Japan), the 'Wrathful' images are placed higher in the subtle

original justification for this having been eliminated along with the pure

Vajrayana teaching.

Buddhism of

It

also

helps to explain the importance in Tibetan

form of his Bodhisattva-reflex, Vajrapani, the protector and chief embodiment of the power of the Vajrayana. One further Tantrik Buddhist mandala representing the subtle and cosmic body should be mentioned. It is that of Kalacakra, the 'wheel of time'. It seems to have been evolved as a deliberate attempt to reconcile Buddhist and Hindu mandala-symbolism, and was especially cultivated in Nepal. Its concentric circles and radial ranks of images include Hindu deities and Vajrayana the terrible

principles carefully correlated

109

150

with each other. The blue-black Kalacakra

himself occupies the centre of the mandala, dancing in the embrace of his red

female counterpart Visvamata, 'mother of

nexion between

Chapter

all'.

There

is

some obscure con-

and the Hindu planetary cakra, described

this,

9.

Each major tradition of Tibetan Tantra envisages

a

supreme Buddha form

(some envisage two, one above the other) which personifies the

and consciousness all

their

earlier, in

complex

unitary whole.

in

which the

entire

significance as condensations of experience,

Two

state

of being

imagery of these great mandalas, with is

known

as a

are represented as transcendentally tranquil, in the state

of uttermost awareness, their minds irradiated by the light of

all

the trans-

formations in the great mandalas. Their names are Samantabhadra and Vajradhara.

A

third, Vajrasattva,

may

appear

as 'active'.

None of the

three

154-6

179

The

Art of Tantra

Hindu supreme principles do. Buddhism is only concerned with states of consciousness, of which enlightenment is the highest. Its pragmatic methods, dealing as they do with the emptiness of every possible inner and outer phenomenon, never suppose a creator. Their Great Whole is represents a 'creator', as

the Void.

The

ultimate goal

and the

described by every form of religion in

is

of different religions locate

arts

they use to indicate

Buddha images

it.

skull, called the usni§a,

which has been

at the

its

crown of the head

own the

terms;

emblem

are given a swelling at the top of the

identified since at least the third century

AD as an outward physical index of inner enlightenment. Burmese and Siamese Buddhas have flame-shaped usni^as. Tibetan Buddhism has supreme wisdom called Usni§avijaya, 'she who is born from Kri§na-worshippers locate the 170

Some Hindu images

'cow-world', there.

By

157

celestial reality set

a

devata of

the Usnija'.

of the transcendent Goloka,

Siva and his 'wife' there.

an interesting transference the old Persian Simurgh,

a great

mythical

symbol of the highest divinely spiritual element in man, became known in India with the coming of Islam. Sometime after i6oo it was assimilated to an older Indian image of a great vulture-bird called Garuda, whose chief earlier role had been to symbolize the celestial air and light upon which the high god Vi§nu was borne. By the eighteenth century Garuda had taken on something of the significance of the Simurgh, which also survives as a spiritual symbol in some parts of India where bird used as a Sufi

Islam has flourished.

There

numerous Tantrik icons which summarize the whole structure of body. Apart from the many anthropomorphic diagrams which

are

the subtle

illustrate the cakras

with their mystical significances there are yantras and

schematic diagrams which lay out the multi-dimensional symbolisms on plane surface. Tibetan paintings

So too 48

may

may

define the psycho-cosmic elements.

Buddhist stupa-emblems. These

last

may

be on

many

scales,

ranging from large works of architecture to small bronze objects. Built stupas in

Nepal even have eyes painted on them

to reinforce the

stupa of Borobodur in Java (ninth century) represents a entirely Buddhist terms, but not,

ascent

up

its

many

however,

composed

is :

a

cosmogram

is

It

offers a path

in

of

cube for

its

peak.

The

essential

that the ascending series of inner

by the three-dimensional forms of which the stupa is earth, rounded dome for water, cone for fire, bowl or

referred to

disc shape for air

psychocosmogram

really Tantrik.

error towards the shining emptiness of Nirvana at

'elements'

meaning. The gigantic

sculptured terraces from the world of discrimination and

feature of a Tantrik stupa

180

a

and curling

finial for aether.

Doubling and development

11

Earlier

on the process whereby man's world of reality

is

developed has been

described in various ways. Here, close to the root of the process, recognizes a tial

number

process as

it is

of distinct early_ stages.

conceived

The diagram

(p.

Hinduism

182) of the essen-

developed Saiikhya philosophy of Tantra

in the

them together. It should, perhaps, be mentioned that Buddhism has no contribution to make to this aspect of Tantra. The subtle categories discussed here are regarded by Buddhism as empty and meaningless, and their absence is the reason why Buddhism elides the two upper cakras in the subtlewill link

body system. Many Hindu Tantrik images represent the first division of the creative urge mto male and female, white and red. This first division was described earlier connection with yantra. But perhaps the most important philosophical issue in connection with the whole idea of the double-sexed primal divinity is this. The point where an ultimate division can be intuited is a logical and phenomenological necessity, since without that division there can be no experience. Experience must be

(pp. 73-4), in

experienced by an experiencer; and he must have something to experience. This

is

the vital issue secreted in the quotations

Upanisad given above possess

and to

act

had

(p. 74). 'first'

The

'one'

who

from the Brihadaranyaka 74

desired to create, to enjoy, to

to divide himself into subject

and object. Those

two terms are correlative; neither has any sense without the other. The subject what experiences the object, which is defined as that which is experienced by the subject. At the highest level of sadhana the object may indeed be a most concentrated and remote idea, such as that presented in the Sri Yantra. But the relationship of subject and object is there. Without the division there can be no love, no activity or field of action, no puja can be made. In Indian philoso-

is

2,

65

phy, since the time of the oldest Upanisads, subject and object have been called

T

and

Sakti,

'This', 'aharh'

and

'idarh',

equated with male and female, Siva and

male and female dancer. The ultimate recognition

are not separate. single act

But

this

of intellect or

is

is

that

T

and

'This'

point of realization to which no one can leap by a

will. If

ladder towards that point. phical system

a

he pretends to he

is

The Tantrikally modified

which can authenticate

a fool.

Tantra provides

a

Saiikhya offers a philoso-

it.

181

The

Art of Tantra Brahman All-embracing Parasamvit

without qualities

Sdnkhya Tattva diagram,

The lower

levels

illustrating the manifestation processes of creation

of the Sahkhya Tattva diagram define

the various

all

sub-functions and categories through which the original flow of Being-energy is

channelled and subdivided to

time.

It is,

make up

the experienced

phenomenological 'synthetic

in fact, a full

matches the pattern of the subtle body remarkably.

It

the categories defining

system, and

it

meaning of

here, illustrating

how

arc cut and shuffled out like differently coloured

playing cards from the single deck of the possible. Indian playing cards arc

round.

An important point has always to be remembered.

of every objective

'This'

necessary; but so too 'Being'

182

form

a priori'

explains the

many of the diagrams of world-evolution reproduced 158 159

world of forms and

from

by every experiencer the female

is

In every experience

qualifier

the male reservoir of energy,

which

is

absolutely

supplies the

the side of the objective, the unitary consciousness of self from the

Doubling and development of the experiencer. Within every yoni, every active world-as-woman, is would be no energy to

side

buried the Uhgarh, the phallus, without which there her pattern.

inflate

To

primary male spark of Being (Prakasa) the Goddess

a

offers Herself as the 'Pure

There a

are

innumerable icons

male and

a female.

double-sexed being,

an erect organ, the

which He reflects Himself (Vimarsa).^^ India which represent the Divine Pair either as

Mirror in

in

He with erect organ, She holding a mirror, or as a single divided down the centre, the right half male, again with

left

it

may

it

moment it

reflection, the

.

.

.

theoretically

itself

with

own

its

assume an original spark within the

any character or form

seeks to attribute to that spark

'Whatever power anything

into delusion. For;

falls

Goddess.

161

half female.

Philosophy, however, must not be allowed to delude constructions. Whilst

170

possesses, that

the

is

Into the hollows of her hair-pores millions of cosmic eggs

constantly disappear.

.

.

.

She grants the

desires

of sadhakas by assuming various

But 'She who is absolute Being, Bhss and Consciousness may be thought of as female, male or pure [neuter] Brahman; in reality she is none of these. '3 Even these are simply forms She assumes to make sadhana possible. forms

'3°

in play.

'

And

so, if in his

he can reach

a state

puja the sadhaka does everything in the appropriate way,

of concentration which enables

his

focused

mind and

eyes

of the image; the Devata will then enter the image. But means, properly understood, that anything can be treated as an image. For

to sink into the depths this

the energies

which

fill

the universe,

which

are

all

the different Saktis radiating

from the original seed through the cosmic anatomy of the Goddess, are parts of Her, and reside in mountain, tree, shrub, creeper, river and sea; one may worship Her in any of these objects, looking on each as another sort of yantra, or instrument. It is, of course. She who must be worshipped in the objects, not

And so She can be reverenced in those jackals, kites, women, cows, fire and so on, of which Tantra's art is full. Everything (according to the summary in the great Purusa hymn of the Rig Veda) from Brahman to a grass-blade, including stone, wood, axe, spade, the objects themselves.

graveyards, corpses,

fruit

and

reason

rice,

should be worshipped. She

especially those

and in which pounders

which play

thus absent nowhere. For this

a special part in the

analogy

a sexual

is

transformations of the world

present, such as the stones converted into rice

160

illustrated here.

In reality^^ there are is

is

many natural objects can be interpreted as the Goddess in manifestation,

no evidence

of,

nor

no such two things

is

as Sakti

and possessor of Sakti. There

there any necessity for, the existence of the

Male, female, and neuter,

all

are Sakti.

Body,

manifestations of Sakti. Consciousness as self

condensed and massive form of Sakti

;

senses,

is,

mind, and

like the

two

things.

self, all

are

orb of the sun, the

while body, senses, mind, and other

things, like sun's rays diffused into space, are but fluid parts of that great massive Sakti.

Although the sun

is

really

energy in substance, yet for

common

under-

183

The

Art of Tantra

standing such expressions

as 'the

sun

is

possessed of energy' and 'the sun's

energy' are used. Similarly, although self is Sakti that living 'self

men may

order

the better understand, Sastra has used such expressions as

possessed of Sakti' and 'self s Sakti'. This

is

itself in substance, yet in

is

the only difference

between

Sakti and the possessor of Sakti. In a spiritual sense, nothing exists as possessor

of Sakti besides

Even the Purii§a-form, which you and

Sakti.

our language and understanding,

know as

I,

the possessor of Sakti,

or changed form of Prakriti. Other evidence

is

unnecessary.

Himself, the sole and best Puru§a in the world,

who

according to is

but another

The Supreme Lord

presides or dwells in

all

Puru§as, has said in the Nirvana Tantra Just as trees grow on the earth and again disappear in it; just as bubbles are formed in water and again disappear in water; just as lightning is formed in clouds and again disappears in them; so at the time of creation Brahma, Visnu, Mahesvara, and other gods arc born of the body of that bcginninglcssand eternal Kalika, and at the time of dissolution they again disappear in Her. O Devi, for this reason, so long as the living man does not know the supreme truth in regard to Her who plays with Mahakala, his desire for liberation can only give rise to ridicule. From a part only of Kalika, the prnnordial Sakti, arises Brahma, from a part only arises Visnu and from a part only arises Siva. O fair-eyed Devi, just as rivers and lakes arc unable to traverse a vast sea [that is to say, however strong their currents

womb

of the

may

be, they

all

lose their individual existence entering into the vast

Brahma and

sea] so

other Dcvas lose their separate existence on

Compared with Brahma and the other gods is hollow made by a cow's hoof

entering into the uncrossable and infinite being of Great Kali. the vast sea of the being of Kali, the existence of

nothing but such

water as is contained in the a hollow made by a cow's hoof to form a notion of the unfathomable depth of a sea, so it is impossible for Brahma and other gods to have a knowledge of the nature of Kali.

Just as

it is

little

impossible for

Brahma, Visnu, and Mahesvara, the

text continues, are the presiding

the three periods of creation, preservation,

with

his intellect the

Mahakala,

whom

to

the three periods of time are but three twinkles of His

moment and

nor Visnu, nor Mahesvara knows Her

make

around the individual

;

nature of that Kali with whose playful glance even

three eyes, appears at one

This should

Devas of

and dissolution but none can master

disappears at another. Neither Brahma, fully.

the essential point that the 'projecting' of a 'world' is

not subject to his

own will. It may be produced through own

the instrumentality of his personal desires; but these themselves, and his

notion that he selves the

things

184

is

an individual with desires performing

work of the Great Whole. The world must

which

to the individual are repugnant, hostile

acts

of will, are them-

therefore contain

and horrible.

many

i6o

Rice-husking stones,

worshipped as male and female. Bengal, modern. Stone lo m.

i6i Ardhanarisvara, deity half-male, half female.

Bengal, 13 th century.

Sandstone

h. 16 in.

/,oaj¥ii^^ -'^^ "

-.

162-3 Cosmic sun and moon, obverse and Tanjore, i8th century. Wood, pamtcd h. 12 in.

reverse.

164 The Primal Light. Dcccan, i8th century Gouache and gold on paper x 7 in. 1 1

65

'M

Primary divisions within the fertiHzed world-egg. Rajasthan, i8th century. Gouache on paper 11x17

Painting illustrating Brahmins louache on paper, 9x15 in. ')6

as the

Knowers of Brahman

in the presence

in.

of golden eggs. Rajasthan, 17th century,

107

Egg of Brahman or Svayambhu unknown.

lingam. Banaras, age Stone h. 7 in.

168 Egg of Brahman or Svayambliu lingarii,with yoni-shaped flash ot red.

Banaras, age

unknown. Stone

h. 7

m.

Painting illustrating the legend 169 of the Expanding Lingam. Rajasthan, gold on paper 1 8th century. Gouache and

.

,

,

13

X 16

in.

lyo

The God

Siva seated with his wife.

BasohH

style,

17th century. Ciouachc on paper

10x7 m.

*' ;

Bhairava, the Destroying Rajasthan, 17th century. Brass h. 13 in. 1

71

Head of Siva

as

Power of Time.

S

Bhil tribe,

'MMe^«i^: as initiation Lin^ani, en-raved with Sri Yantra, probably used 17^ as symbol of the instrument for fcinale Tantnkas, and for meditation trom the emergence of creation, symbolized by the mcised Sri Yantra Rock crystal undirterentiated ('.round of Being. Rajasthan, 17th century. h. 3 in.

m

of the united male and female

yoni-basm, symbolic Liiigaiii 173 principles. Banaras, modern. Rock crystal

h.

1

in.

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q«tha,

myth of

13-14,

1

meditation 69; -ritual -culture 134; -philosophy 193 vegetation-deities 75

Vimarja* 74, 183 Vira* 97-8 Vi?nu 13, 99-100,

26;

i

cosmos

143 river 99

11, 66-76, 80, 130, 180, 183, 196; Buddhist 74-5; cakras as 156; and time 142-3; and see mancjalas;

48-57, 60, 6j, 102, IJ4, 172,

174 132, 143, 180, 184,

1

Void, the 74, 178, 180; Whole, Nirvana; go Vratyas 80

artd see

Great

yoga*, Tantrik 44, 154, 165-6; Buddhist 166; Hindu no; and see yogis; 81-2, tjS-g Yogatattva Upani»fad, the 154 yogis 77, 98; meditation of 156; and Prana 155; Saiva 129; i}7 Yoginis 80, 97; j, 68, 73 yoni* 68, 70, 74, 77, 165, 167, 183, 193, 195; 3. 3h 35, 38-40. 43. 68, 173

yoni-mudra 165

PB-C0459 5-07

Avalon,

yantras*

2, 46,

Visuddha cakra 167 Visvamata 179

168,

see

Yamuna,

143

water pots 65; jo

Whitehead, Alfred North 44

C

see

Yama*

10

194: 85. 97, 104. 136 Vi:>nu-Buddha 13-14, 110 Visnupada, the

177-9

216

world,

John,

Yajna* 48

Varuna 143

Vedic*

union, unity 32, 44, 75, 133, 155, 168,

(Wil-

Sir

liam James) 98

Vayu

130, 171

Woodroffe, Arthur

Vallabhacharya 100 Varaha, the 54

Zeus 75

O'": A-'\

''..'..

^J

-V-,

TANTRIK ART,

the visual expression of a philosophy as old as humanity, has only beconne known to the Western world in the last

ten years.

Tantra

is

feeling, art

a special manifestation of Indian

and

religion,

probably an adapta-

tion into later Indian life-patterns of powerful

images, practices and thought older than any of the individual Indian religions.

ecstasy

focused

on

a

vision

A

of

cult of

cosmic

as compared to other Indian philosophies, s3ys an emphatic "Yes" to life. Its ritual, magic, myth, and life-style have given rise to a complex of signs and emotive symbols which form the basis of a fascinating series of paintings and works of sexuality,

Tantra,

art.

It

Tantra has a particular wisdom of its own. deals with love. Basic to it is the assump-

Printed in Ho/land

- one having very ancient roots in the constructive imagination of the human race that human sexual libido is in some sense identical with the creative and beneficial energy essence of the universe The mathe-

tion

and visual embodiments of peoples of the West concrete symbolisms with which the contemporary mind can feel deep matical, verbal,

its

practice

and

intuition offer to the

empathy despite cultural Philip Rawson, author

differences. of

The Art of South-

east Asia and organizer of the recent exhibi-

London under the auspices of the Arts Council of Great Britain, writes this book as an interpreter, explaining, with the aid of the many illustrations of classic examples of Tantrik art, how Tantra invites its followers to a personal meditative and visual exploration of self and the world. tion of Tantrik art held in

ISBN 0-8212-0523-4

S7.95